Copacetic
by Materia-Blade
Summary: My story was finally over. I had brought the Golden Morning and my reward was life. I found the peace I'd fought so hard for. The world was open to me! All I had to do was stay out of the light, and not draw attention to myself. That would be easy! ...I didn't last a week.
1. To Begin Again

**Disclaimer: **This fic's characters and content sure as hell don't belong to me. They belong to Wildbow, and the story for which they belong to can be found by googling 'Parahumans' and then spending the best week (or month) of your life reading.

Author's Note: I've been writing in third person omniscient for all of my life so moving to first is a bit of a change. I'm gonna try it though. Let me know if I get any characters terribly wrong. Hope I wont.

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><p><strong>Copacetic<br>Chapter One: To Begin Again**

College.

Fuck me.

That pretty much summed up my thoughts as I took slow steps towards the campus spread out before me. Dad was parked in the parking lot, waving at my. He was smiling, trying to hide tears as I walked away. I dutifully pretended that they weren't there when I turned to give him a final wave.

He returned it, happier than I'd seen him in a long time. Finally, he put the car in reverse and began to back out of the parking lot.

Steeling myself, I turned towards the building that would probably be my home for the next year at least.

_Am I ready for this? Can I throw myself into this sort of world again?_

I probably could. There was no Emma here. No Sophia. Hell it wasn't even remotely like high school. I had my own apartment, and I intended to pay my own rent alongside two roommates whom I had yet to meet. It was all so normal. Peaceful. How life was supposed to be. I could meet new people and hopefully they would accept me, despite my scars, the dimples from the bulletholes in my forehead. My prosthetic arm. I was still actually a little angry about that one. Sure, Cauldron could silence my Passenger but could they spare a healer to give me my arm back? Or if that was too much work, maybe get a Tinker to make me a fake one? Anything was better than this damn hook I had.

But I couldn't fault them for what they'd given me. Another chance. Another life. I'd be able to make friends like the ones I had with the Undersiders. Brian, Alec, Aisha… Lisa and Rachel. Those two most of all.

I still had trouble remembering the ones who weren't my anchors. My holds on sanity there at the end. Names came in and out, slipping from my still recovering mind. Acquaintances, and friends. None as important as those five though. Golem. Cuff. Defiant and Dragon. Their titles had been easier to remember than their names, except for the Undersiders. I'd spent over a year longer with them than I had with the Undersiders but it didn't matter. I remembered everything about that original group.

I loved them. Alexandria had commented on that I remember, and it had angered me and surprised me simultaneously at the time.

_From teammates, to friends, to people you love. _

Now they all thought I was dead. It was better that way though. Better everyone thought me to be dead and gone forever.

I turned my thoughts away from those sort of things. This world, Earth Dalet I supposed I'd call it, didn't even have anything like Endbringers. Or capes even. Ask them about Leviathan and all but the nerdiest of geeks would blink at you, confused.

_Oh yeah, wasn't that one of the big things that fought…S-Scion?_

They would accompany that with a shudder and a whisper, as if saying his name might bring him back. Even if the people of this world didn't know the Endbringers, they knew Scion. Knew him to their _bones_.

I hoped and prayed they would never know such adversity like the Endbringers. Never have to toe that line between allowing criminals free in the hopes that they could help against attacks from beings far too powerful to exist. Perhaps a bit selfishly, I hoped that Khepri would always draw those blank stares. That name too, had stuck with me. My name. The name of the Endbringer I had almost been.

I stepped into the apartment building and headed to the third floor with my hopes high. My things, few as they were, had all been moved in already except for the laptop in the bag across my shoulder. Classes started in two days and I'd now thoroughly explored the campus with my dad.

I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret thinking about him sending me off like this. He'd lost me for almost two whole years while I'd been with the Wards and vid-calls over the internet just weren't the same. He only lived a half hour away though. Either of us could visit any time, and I had a feeling I'd be taking the bus home every weekend for the first few weeks.

Maybe, after everything, relearning how to speak, living with my dad for another year, I'd regressed a little. I wasn't ashamed. I missed my Dad already.

"Oh, hey, are you the girl in room C?" Asked a peppy red-head hovering around the communal kitchen. Abruptly, a heavenly scent of dirt cheap macaroni seized me, and I noticed that the stove was on, steam billowing from a metal pot on it. So, the girl liked to cook?

"Yeah. I'm Taylor Hebert. Nice to meet you," I offered nervously.

"Chloe Leeds. Want some macaroni? I just got moved into B, and I'm starving!" Said the girl as she held up a knife that was way too large for the task she was using it for. Slicing hot dogs.

I smiled a little, taking extra care to make sure my sleeve covered my metal arm. "Sure, if it isn't any trouble."

The girl turned to me again. Honestly she seemed pretty nice. She had shoulder length hair that fell straight as an arrow. She was pale with clear skin and light blue eyes. Shorter even than me, but far more beautiful, I knew. She wore a striped purple and green longsleeved shirt, and a pair of sweatpants with the college's team logo printed all over them. A knight's helmet.

"Nah, no trouble. I hoped you'd be back soon. Saw your stuff, but none of it was in the kitchen. Hope you don't mind me loading up the fridge and cabinets?" She phrased the sentence as a question but turned back to her macaroni.

"No! Er.. uha.. I mean no problem. I'm not much of a cook anyway," I said dumbly.

"Hah. Me neither. Anyway, feel free to grab anything that doesn't have a label on it. Have you met Sophia yet?"

I scowled at the name, irritated. Of course one of my roommates would be named Sophia. Not that I really cared anymore, but it would definitely sour my day if the girl's personality resembled Shadow Stalker's in any way. "Sophia? Oh, the girl in A? No. Nobody was here before."

_What an unpleasant coincidence this is._

"Oh, she seems pretty cool. She only stopped by to move a chair and a few bags in before she left. Don't think she unpacked anything either," Chloe said, never taking her eyes away from the pot.

"Hmm. She must've wanted to look around town I guess. Or maybe she's buying stuff at Walmart," I thought aloud.

Chloe gave a noncommittal shrug.

I wandered into the main living area, slipping my shoes off as I went. My feet sunk into the carpet and it felt great. Dad's house only had hardwood floors. I blinked at the enormous television and glass stand that had been erected in the corner. The communal living area had provided a couch but where had the television come from?

My new roommate apparently noticed my wide-eyed stare. I'd never owned a TV that big. "Oh hey yeah could you turn that on!? They're showing the Wardens Induction Ceremony in ten, and I missed the live one. Its already hooked up so it should work. Channel… damn. Thirteen I think? Its different here than it was back home."

"Wardens?" I asked.

"Oh wow, you been living under a rock?" She replied skeptically. "You know? Wardens! The new superhero team up in New York! Ever since S-Scion," the girl stuttered momentarily. "People have been getting powers! Anyway, they're taking after that other Earth and forming a team, called the Wardens to police the villains that keep popping up. They're starting a team in all the major cities! God I wish I could have superpowers! Wouldn't that be sweet?"

I couldn't exactly say I was _surprised. _The same thing had happened in Earth Aleph. But I didn't think letting her know I was a refugee from Earth Bet would be a very good way to start off our friendship, not to mention my thoughts on just how wrong having powers could go. So I just nodded, wandered over to the flatscreen, and pressed power.

I was immediately inundated with a Teletubbies sing-a-long. Jeez did they still play that crap? I changed the channel quickly, hiding a little embarrassment that I had no reason to feel, until I reached one that looked like a news broadcast.

"_-elcome for a few of the Heroes that will be making up New York's own Wardens!"_

Applause burst from the crowd gathered below a large dias that held a group of eleven Capes I didn't recognize. Probably the new team. So, Earth Dalet had been having trigger events. I can't believe I had missed that until now. Living alone with my dad, working part time at shoe store while my dad managed a construction company, we didn't get much time for anything else.

I slunk back to the couch and draped myself over the side lazily. We'd moved a lot of crap today and I was beat. That macaroni smelled damn good.

For a while I watched the show in silence. They introduced the new heroes, giving a bit of information on what each one could do. There were seven Wardens and four Wards.

One or two of them, probably the ones that had already been caught on camera, gave a demonstration of their powers. Bastion, a tall man with a body-builder's physique, and a purple and white costume, was a classic forcefield maker. His power seemed reminiscent of Narwhal's except I was certain he couldn't exceed the Manton effect. On the other hand Tyco, a Tinker clearly, had somehow managed to come off as both playful and awesome, as he showed off his vehicles that looked like something straight out of a small boy's fantasy. I was hesitant to call them cars. Land vehicles fixed with giant jet engines lit with blue flames or pulsing wit purple electricity that he assured the audience was 'perfectly safe.'

It seemed he was more equipped to outfit the police force than actually do any field work. Still, even I wanted one of those shiny cars, and I didn't care much about them.

"Seems unreal doesn't it?" Chloe asked, and I jumped. Luckily, she was either too kind to make fun of me or didn't notice as she proffered a plate of macaroni with sliced hot dogs mixed in.

"Thanks!" I said brightly. Careful to grab the plate lightly with my left hand, I set it down on the end table to my right, while Chloe sat down with her own plate to watch with me.

"So, who's your favorite? Mine's Clinic. I mean, wouldn't it be awesome to be able to heal anyone who's in the same room as you?" Chloe was clearly enthusiastic about the whole thing.

My thoughts lingered on Panacea. Healing. It sounded like such a wonderful gift to be able to give people. But I couldn't forget how cold the New Wave girl had become. How calloused she was to healing people.

"Not… as amazing as you think," I said, off handedly.

She gave me a curious look and I cringed. That had sounded a little bit too much like first hand experience.

"I mean… wouldn't you get tired of people begging to be healed all the time? After a while, I think you might become numb to it," I said, trying to make the comment sound offhanded.

"I hope not," the redhead replied between a spoonful of noodles. "I'm hoping to be a doctor someday! So I'd like to think I'll always be willing to help people who need it."

She really did seem like a genuinely nice person. And a doctor? Wow. It must be nice to know exactly what you want right from the start. All I wanted to find here was a way to get beyond my past. But she had presented a good opportunity for me to be a little open about myself. I'd have to tell them sooner or later so I figured, best bite the bullet now. I was having serious trouble left handing the macaroni while pretending that it wasn't a problem anyway.

"Well if you ever get healing powers, I'm first in line," I said. "I uhm… well."

I slid off my jacket and pulled off the glove, revealing my arm.

"Oh… oh wow. Holy fuck, how did that happen? I'm sorry..."

"My arm. A… Well. I lost it during one of Scion's attacks." A lie, sort of. Scion had been attacking but he hadn't been the cause of this.

"I just wanted to let you know so, you know. It doesn't surprise you in the future. I know its kind of...weird." I finished lamely.

"Oh, no its not weird. I've known a few people with prosthetics. I'm just… ah, do you need help or anything?" She asked, clearly feeling nervous. Her eyes kept lingering on my hand and the fake, immobile plastic fingers.

I grinned back at her. "I'm crippled, not helpless! Just still getting used to using my left arm for everything," I claimed brightly as I picked up the plate with my left hand and balanced it with my right. I headed over to the kitchen table. It would be a hell of a lot easier to not make a mess of myself there and I could still see the TV.

"Thanks by the way. Some people get really uncomfortable when they find out." I said off-handedly, fixing my eyes not on her, but on the television again.

The girl jumped, jerking her eyes away from my prosthetic as if I'd caught her staring. Which I _had._ She'd clearly _been_ uncomfortable. Fortunately, I'd learned that little trick a few months ago and it tended to work pretty well. Thank someone for 'not' making a big deal out of it, and they'd inevitably go out of their way to avoid being uncomfortable around it, hoping you didn't catch on. So far the trick had a pretty good success rate.

_Aaaand, I'm a manipulative bitch. _

"Well hell yeah! If I ever get powers you'll be first on my list! But… honestly have you ever thought about going to New York and seeing Clinic? She might even be able to heal that for you." Chloe asked, genuinely curious.

I shrugged noncommittally. "I'd never heard of her till you brought her up. Let me guess, the girl with the red cross on her costume right?" I asked pointing out the tall blonde haired woman on the television.

Sudden panic seized me as I got a closer look at the woman. Bonesaw. Even with the mask and a difference of nearly a decade in age, I recognized her. The blonde curls on a cute face were as damning as a picture of the whole Slaughterhouse Nine. Clinic was this world's Bonesaw. A kinder one, whose powers were apparently different. This girl, woman really as she was probably my age or maybe as much as five years older, hadn't been twisted by Jack in her youth. Her abilities hadn't been paired with horror. After all people in 'this' world had only started triggering after Scion's attack.

Rationality set in. This world was much like Aleph. Most people born after capes had started appearing in Earth Bet had not been born in Aleph, and the same was true here. There were rare exceptions but they were unlikely. That, and Bonesaw was far too young to be this woman.

That rational did little to set my heart at ease. The blonde curls had been such a staple in my world that the hairstyle had had gone entirely out of practice for an entire generation of children fearful of mimicking the figurehead of the Slaughterhouse Nine.

"That's the one. Maybe it'd be a good idea Taylor?" I barely heard her as I fought to recapture my breath. I hope she considered it just a pause as if considering the offer. No way. I wasn't going within a hundred miles of the Protectorate if I could help it. Wardens. Whatever they were calling themselves. Sure maybe these capes were new and it wasn't likely any of them would recognize "Skitter" but I didn't want to take any chances.

"Maybe someday, if I'm ever up near New York again," I said with the most non-committal shrug I could manage. As if I didn't really take the powers seriously. I was supposed to have never heard of Wardens before after all.

A sound of keys suddenly alerted me to the presence of a newcomer at the door. The door opened to reveal a girl who looked thankfully nothing like Shadow Stalker's civilian form. Shorter than me as well, the girl's hair deep brown hair was tied into a cacophony of curls and pinned up to frame a slightly pudgy face. She too was thin and pretty but not beautiful in the way I might describe Chloe. Her clothes left little to the imagination though and a swirling tattoo of some sort cascaded down her left arm.

I instantly didn't like her, and felt a little guilty about it. From her appearance she seemed like a party girl. The one who'd get drunk and wake up not remembering the last night. But I'd give her a chance. Maybe she wasn't so bad. Hell she couldn't possibly be harder to get along with than Bitch.

"Hey Chloe. What's your name, skinny?" She asked simply looking down at me on the couch.

I bristled. I wasn't _that_ skinny. I'd filled out at least a little since high school and my days as Skitter.

"Taylor Hebert." I clipped. "Are you Sophia?"

She nodded, talking as she stepped around the couch, heading for the recliner when she spotted the elephant in the room.. "Mmm, Sophia Fehrenbacher. I- Holy shitballs, your arm is gone!"

I laughed before I could stop myself. It was by far the best reaction anyone had ever had to seeing my prosthetic. My opinion of the girl made an almost instantaneous flip. Her expression was so honestly surprised that I couldn't hold it back.

"Daamn, you've gotta tell me the story behind that sometime. Doesn't hurt still does it?" She asked, her curiosity overriding any chance that she might hold back out of sympathy.

She had no pity for me whatsoever, and honestly, I thought the girl might've found the whole thing cool. A fair sight different from the almost constant sympathy I received from most people, and a refreshing one at that.

"Nah, no pain, though that feeling of ghost limb that you hear about is definitely real. Honestly its not that bad. Hey, if I'm lucky maybe a Tinker will trigger who can make really awesome prosthetics!" I joked, hopefully.

"What's a Tinker?" Sophia added at the same time as, Chloe murmured, "Or you could just have Clinic heal you…"

"Yeaaahhh, but then I wouldn't have awesome battlescars!" I turned to Chloe with false excitement hoping Sophia would ignore my slip. Of course this world didn't have categories yet. Dammit. I should've _known_ that.

Sophia joined me, thankfully forgetting about my slipup. "Fuck yeah!"

"Hey, I thought you said you didn't know anything about heroes. How do you know about triggers?" Chloe asked, her eyes narrowed at me.

_Damn damn damn! Divert! Distract! Raise a wall of bugs!_

I didn't miss a beat. "I didn't know about the _Wardens," _I emphasized. "Triggers… those I know something about."

"Wait, so you _know a hero?" _

I faltered. "I… know a person with powers," I said evasively. "I don't really want to talk about her."

_Me. I don't really want to talk about me._

"A villain then." Sophia said, disregarding me entirely.

I glared at her, and she flinched. I shouldn't have brought this up at all. It hit entirely too close to home. What was I? I spent two years being a hero, saving people. PG and shit. That was after four of the most intense months of my life. Two years building back a reputation as a hero, covering the dirt I'd filled my life with before. Everything I'd done I thought had the right reasons.

Then I'd ruined it all. I'd been willing to enslave every cape I could find. An army five thousand strong, all held under my unwavering leash. Regent was probably rolling in his grave. I'd been willing to do that because as far as I could see it had been the only option…

...What kind of person sees enslavement as the only way? If only I'd been smarter, faster, better maybe I could've found that better way.

"I said I don't want to talk about it." I barked, my tone involuntarily turning sour. I feared it might've been reflected in my bugs with the way the two girls gulped. But no. I couldn't feel them anymore. My passenger was dormant.

"Jeez, no need to bite us," Sophia chided. She was nervous. A little afraid maybe? Was I that intimidating? Abruptly I realized that I'd locked eye contact with the girl and hadn't dropped it since the moment she'd spoken. Damn, now I felt like a giant jerk. They were just curious. I almost wanted to call them innocent but I wasn't stupid enough to label anyone with that anymore. Panacea had seemed innocent to me once. Look how that turned out.

Still, a little politeness never hurt anyone. I had baggage. No harm in them knowing I had trigger topics that they should probably avoid.

"Sorry. I just… that question hits a little close to home." I apologized.

_Weakness. Do you want to be walked all over? You're angry. They should shut their mouths, and you'll make them if you don't want it to go like last time. Image and intimidation! Don't you remember how good it felt, that cloak of invulnerability you wore?! You don't deser–!_

I cut off that line of thought before it could go any further. The monster inside. That part of me that hadn't felt shame or guilt but pride. Pride at tearing out Lung's eyes. Pride at pulling the trigger on Coil. Pride at my plan to bring down the Behemoth. Pride… at enslaving an entire army. My monster had only grown with the years, and whatever it was Panacea had done to me hadn't softened it. Not one bit.

_Dammit, I'm not like that. I'm not a monster. Not an Endbringer. I didn't feel pride then… It was always for the right reasons. _

We fell into a sort of awkward silence the three of us. Finally though, Chloe broke it. The girl clearly hated silence. "Well, we won't ask again then. I'm sorry too, for what its worth. Didn't mean to pry."

Sophia nodded as well. Shit, I actually _had _scared her. Dammit all. This is not how I intended to make friends. I gave them a shy smile, and they seemed to accept it with their own. I took another bite of macaroni. It really was excellent. Perfect college experience already.

"Oh look, they're introducing the other Wardens!" Chloe's excitement changed the entire demeanor of the room. Sophia, too, looked interested in the people on stage, and I had to admit I was a little excited myself. These people weren't Cauldron. Maybe they really _were_ heroes...

...Like I'd wanted to be. So very long ago.

"_This, ladies and gentlemen, is Rhapsody," _The television spoke, introducing one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. She reminded me of Canary in look, but her eyes had the hard passion of Alexandria. The woman stood and gave a short bow that mocked the audience more than showing any sign of respect. They were hiding her power but it was easy enough to guess… I could… _see it. _She could sing, another similarity to Canary. But instead of control or inspiration, her song only brought sleep. I had no doubt that some who'd fallen under her lullaby would never wake again.

I lurched, shaking my head in denial. No. No... Goosebumps rose on my arms and I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing. But it couldn't be... couldn't have _been_! There was no way I could know a cape's powers by _looking!_ That would mean... I was still...

_Khepri._

The name haunted my dreams as much as my waking hours. Contessa had only told me it once but it dominated my mind. The name had been picked for me by the world, and I'd been exiled for it. A name chosen for the fear I inspired.

"...think she can do?" Sophia asked my other roommate. She sat down on the armchair, another piece of furniture the apartment had come with, and took up a lively discussion about the show with Chloe.

I glanced back at the television. Gone were the impressions of the singer's possible power. Gone were the dark implications hidden behind a voice that could sing the world to sleep if only it had a loud enough speaker. Gone.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It was all in my head. Just my imagination.

"Probably sing I guess." Chloe replied blandly. "Not a very cool power if you ask me."

Why was I so worried about this? I couldn't feel even the slightest trace of a bug. It didn't matter what I'd done because everyone was alive, and I couldn't do it again. The ends justified the means. I'd saved everyone. Finally forced them to work on the same page.

So why was my decision eating away at me?

And why now? Why was this only starting to bug me now after I've been here for almost a year?

Maybe it was just the nervous jitters from moving away from my dad. Parahuman nervous jitters. Much more intense than civilian ones.

I stood and took the plastic plate over to the sink and rinsed it off before leaving it there along with my fork. The other two girls were engrossed in their conversation, and I was content to stay out of it. Maybe not the best social decision ever but I didn't want to go down the road with capes.

"Well nice to meet you guys. I've been walking all day around campus though so I think I'm gonna take a shower and turn in." I told them as I hovered outside my door.

"At seven?" Chloe asked skeptically.

"Yep. I like to get up early and run in the mornings. Especially while its still warm out."

Sophia shook her head, miming a sort of fake pity. "Euughh. A _morning person." _I think I'd captured villains in the past with less disdain. I grinned at her.

"Euughh. A night owl…" I mimicked her disgusted tone as best I could. She laughed and threw a throw pillow at me.

Maybe I really could make friends. I'd done it before after all.

It had been over a year since I'd seen or heard any of them. I wondered how they were doing? What they thought of me now, after everything. Tattletale. Bitch. Imp. Grue. Even Regent, now gone but not forgotten. I missed them so much sometimes.

I wandered into my room shaking my head, and turned on the nozzle to the shower in my private bathroom. Meeting new people. Making new friends... it almost felt like a sort of betrayal. The Undersiders had dug me out of the worst pit I'd ever been in. Well my new pit was just as bad, but all the demons terrorizing me were in my head.

Maybe these new friends could save me, just like my old ones had.

"Maybe…" I whispered.

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><p><strong>End Chapter<strong>


	2. Teaching Teachers

**A/N:** Parahumans doesn't belong to me. It remains the property of Wildbow. If you have not read Parahumans gtfo and go read that shit cuz its the best fucking story you'll read in a decade.

Special thanks to MarkerIV for being a hella awesome beta and sounding board, and also the folks over at spacebattles.

**Chapter Two: Teaching Teachers**

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><p>"Come <em>on! <em>Taylor, you know practically nothing about them and you've been holed up in your room all week!" Chloe was a very passionate individual when it came to most things.

To my unending annoyance, the girl had apparently made it her personal pilgrimage to "get me out of my shell." The girl was constantly pestering me to come to parties, meet people, make friends and the like. It was kind of nice, in an insufferable sort of way. Sometimes I thought she just did it to annoy me but other times… times like this when she was being particularly insistent I thought maybe she really liked me.

"_Come ooon!" _She emphasized her annoyance with me by grabbing my arm and physically trying to tug me off my spot on the couch. Sophia might've been able to pull that off but luckily I was stronger than Chloe.

I gave her a half lidded stare as she leaned all her weight into tugging on me and I didn't budge.

"Please let go of that." I said calmly, referring to my arm. It wasn't exactly firmly attached and slid off pretty easily when pulled the wrong way. Luckily she'd caught part of my actual arm right above the elbow. Unluckily, it was slipping onto the plastic under my sleeve.

"Taylor they can teach us about _Heroes! _They might even know how people get powers! At the very least its worth it to find out about the two or three we have in town? There are two bad ones you know?" Chloe asked while she petulantly scrunched her face up.

She reminded me of Imp in a way. She was a less funny, less perverted, and older Imp.

I still didn't say anything but I did cock an eyebrow.

"_Come oooonnnn! _I wanna go but I don't want to go alone!" She huffed. She gave a final, mighty tug and I groaned as my prosthetic detached. The girl flailed, trying to hang onto my jacket which suddenly had a lot less traction than it had a moment before.

Comically, she sprawled on the carpet lightly banging her head against the wall behind her. My prosthetic slid out of my sleeve and flopped onto the ground along with the rubber lining and sock that was almost permanently rolled up my arm.

The girl's jaw dropped open in horror. "Oh my god I'm so sorry! I didn't break it did I? Oh god, Taylor I didn't mean to do that!"

I rolled my eyes and smiled. Her apologetic horror was so painfully genuine that I had trouble _not grinning_. "Its okay, the thing was getting itchy anyway. And alright. I'll go. But you owe me."

"_Yes!" _

Apparently, ever since Obelisk had made herself known by 'surprise surprise' robbing a bank in town, the local professors had decided to run a couple of awareness seminars after hours. What they'd learned about powers and a few tips on what to do incase you ran into a villain.

I couldn't imagine that they had anything more vital to say in that regard than, stay calm, no sudden movements, and pray. Even the weakest of capes wouldn't find much challenge from a civilian.

I do remember being irritated that a different Hero had stolen Vigilant's title but I had the sneaking suspicion that I would have to get used to that. How long until I met someone calling themselves Hero or Legend, who'd never met the ones in my world? I guess it was only a matter of time.

That said, I thought his title fit this world's version more than it had fit the Vigilant from my homeworld. This one apparently had 360 degree partial x-ray vision and enhanced reflexes. Didn't get much more vigilant than that.

It was warm outside and the sun was just starting to fall below the horizon at about 6 pm, but you could feel that winter was on its way. The slight nip in the air foretold cold nights in the future, but not yet. I wore a jacket anyway, as I often did in public. People tended to gawk and then avoid looking when I went out in a short sleeved shirt, especially without the fake limb. The ghostly way the jacket fell wasn't exactly 'better' but it was manageable at least.

Some of my teachers were already giving me grief for my bad handwriting. Lets see them write with their offhand eh?

I'd managed to keep my crippled status away from most of my teachers. I don't really know why I did it but I had no intention of letting them know I was forced to write with my off hand. The classes I attended, all but one, were taken in huge lecture halls with anywhere from 50 to 100 students sitting there trying not to fall asleep, so it wasn't like they could remember my name or anything. They just saw crappy handwriting on a paper or two and scrawled in their own far worse handwriting that my paper was illegible. Oh. And a -10 points for this eyesore.

Typing was maddening as well. I was practically demoted to finger poking. But I could cope. College had a lot more homework than high school had but it also came with a lot more free time as well. It helped that everything was easier when you weren't terrified of going to class.

The ride to the seminar took about five or six minutes. It was fortunate that Chloe had an on-campus parking pass; otherwise the walk would've been longer than one of my runs. They were holding it on a big open set of bleachers in one of the Campus's many courtyards.

We approached as they began turning outdoor lights on. I grimaced a little. If they were turning lights on that might mean they expected this little gathering to last until dark which was at least an hour away.

_Great. I get to listen to idiots who think they know something about capes for an hour. Hmm. Professors. I bet they go the evolution route._

I remembered from a few world history classes I'd taken during my time with the Wards that many scientists had believed powers were a result of Darwin's evolution in the beginning. That was before Manton and his studies. Yes, someone phasing through glass like Shadowstalker could be explained by survival of the fittest. If you survived long enough eventually evolution would make you just _aware_ of events in other countries like that clairvoyant I'd held near the end. Or give yourself the ability to detect the probability of any given question. Control bugs.

_Right._

The bleachers were giant and made of solid stone, built into the wall of the fine arts center. They doubled as a performance stage for the band to do concerts but when not in use for something professional it was common to find students sitting on them, studying, talking, macking in public, or singing annoyingly loudly to tunes only they could hear from their earbuds.

On the ground below them was a large 'green' surrounded by sidewalks. For this particular event, they'd broken out a lot of stage lights that stood tall or shined up from the ground to highlight part of the grass. A small group of professors stood on that green. I only recognized Professor Butler, my biology teacher.

"Yeap, they're going with the evolution tack." I mumbled, slightly irritated.

Chloe didn't notice.

The bleachers were currently filled with about forty or fifty people, ranging in ages from 20 to 50. They'd opened this little seminar to the community at large and advertised it quite strongly. People were afraid. One person had died at Obelisk's hand during that bank robbery.

What would I have done to her if this were my territory? Bullet ants? No not nearly enough. She'd murdered someone, an innocent civilian for money. That wasn't how capes were supposed to play. This world wasn't like mine. A cape didn't murder civilians and survive outside the birdcage for long in my world, unless their powers were ungodly strong like Nilbog, but this world didn't _have_ a birdcage as deterrent. No Dragon to scare criminals who suddenly felt as if they'd gotten a magic ticket to the top of the food chain.

If the kill had been accidental that was one thing. The video showed revelry in Obelisk's eyes as one of her granite spires shot up through the bank floor to skewer her victim. That could've been a trick of the camera as the quality wasn't the greatest. Her victim had been an old teacher who worked at my college, whose only crime had been throwing a glare at her.

Vigilant had been there trying to stop her but he'd only been so much use. His reflexes were enough to allow him to dodge her obelisks but not really enough to save other people. He'd tried and failed.

I understood that feeling pretty well.

I did a mental calculation of what her power could bring to bear and how I would've stacked up against her: at best she was a Blaster 4. My bugs would've _mutilated _her. I knew my skills. I'd have left her _begging_ for the birdcage.

Fuck… what the hell am I thinking?

We took our seats on the third bleacher up and we were accosted by boys almost instantly.

Or rather, Chloe was.

"Chloe! Hoped you'd make it!" exclaimed a handsome boy probably a year or two my senior. About three inches taller than me, he towered over Chloe but there wasn't an intimidating bone in his body. His hair was rugged and almost bleached blond so it shimmered under the lights from the green.

"Wouldn't have missed it, Tanner!" Chloe replied. "And hey Reid, how're you doing?"

"Fine," Reid replied. Shorter than his companion but still taller than me, Reid was tanned a subtle shade. He had black hair cut short into a high fade. His jacket defined a well toned chest. I flushed a little looking at him. It'd been a long time since I'd felt that particular tingle in my heart.

"And who's this?" He asked with a smile and a gesture towards me.

"Oh, you guys haven't met yet. Taylor, this is Tanner and Reid. Guys? This is my roommate Taylor." Chloe introduced us in her usual peppy and outgoing way.

"Nice to meet ya!" Reid said offering his hand.

Internally I cringed. Why the right hand? Why did it have to be the right hand?

"Uhh… y-you too." I stuttered pathetically, offering my left in the hopes that he'd realize my problem and switch before it became awkward.

He blinked, noticing the problem. His eyes widened and of course he didn't catch on that I was offering my left. Half a moment passed, his eyes lingering on my loose jacket sleeve but to me it felt like a solid minute.

"Oh… uh… sorry." He finally caught on and gave me his left hand, meeting my eyes.

"Smooth dumbass." Tanner quipped from beside him. Luckily Tanner was pretty good at salvaging an already shitty first encounter. He sat down beside me close enough to be uncomfortable. The bleachers were filling up though and he didn't have much choice. Fifty people had stretched to a hundred already.

"This event is a lot more popular than I expected." I said, watching more and more people filter onto the green and up the stone steps.

Reid took a seat on the opposite side of Tanner. I think he was embarrassed. I sent him a smile while Tanner responded to me and he perked up considerably.

"They've heard that Vigilant is going to be here tonight." Tanner said, his own excitement bleeding through his words. "God wouldn't it be cool to…!"

I tuned him out. Yet another clueless idiot who thought powers were the ticket to a better world. They weren't. The novelty wore off far too quickly and was replaced only by fighting agony and suffering for everyone. I was still trying to come to terms with the peace that had fully settled around me. Still trying to shut off the twenty four hour awareness that came from all my time as a cape. Post Traumatic Stress? Hell it was a miracle that I'd managed to make it this far without snapping. Seeing Annette had helped, and my dad was the best dad anyone could ever hope for. They were my anchors now.

This world had been lucky it hadn't had powers for the past thirty years. They just didn't know it yet. Without Endbringers or Scion to challenge them they probably never would. I almost felt a bit bitter towards them. Our world had been sacrificed so that this pristine little place could thrive.

But I was being a hypocrite. Hadn't I spent hour after hour drawing my little costume in my stupid notebook?

So long ago…

"Ladies and Gentleman, thank you for coming out tonight!" Came a sudden voice that interrupted Tanner's speech about eye lasers and my thoughts simultaneously. "My name is Professor Comerford."

The man who spoke had no need for a microphone as the audience quieted almost immediately. He had the type of voice that could carry through an open field, honed by years of educating. He was balding, his remaining hair around his ears a pure white. Large horn rimmed glasses made his eyes seem disproportionately huge. He wore a button up polo and a pair of nice slacks. He could've been a poster boy for the educated upper middle class.

"Now we've got a bit of a treat for you all tonight. We've come up with a panel and the self-proclaimed "hero," Professor Comerford literally air quoted the word, "Vigilant has decided to answer some of our questions."

"I never said that!" Came a sudden voice as a man in his mid twenties approached the lighted area from the green. "I never called myself a hero. All I did was try to stop that robbery. Hell what's all this "Vigilant' bullshit anyway!?" The man burst.

He wasn't wearing a cape or mask at all. Come to think of it, I'd heard Obelisk had been a run of the mill thief as well. She'd worn a mask but it hadn't been to show herself as a powered villain. It had only been present to hide her identity. These weren't capes. Heroes and villains like in my world. That whole concept seemed to have only just caught on with the Wardens.

The _media_ had named these two and neither of them for any type of outfit they wore.

"Students and visitors, Devin Maxworth. Vigilant." Professor Comerford introduced the man, trying to keep his control of the situation and succeeding admirably.

Vigilant seemed to sigh, and I found myself genuinely surprised. This man seemed to want to be a rogue more than anything else, but once again the term "rogue" hadn't been coined yet. He was short, probably my height, but he was composed of powerful muscles. His eyes had a far away look about them that made his reported vision easy for me to believe.

This was the beginning. This was the formative years. My dad had lived through times like these when powers had only just begun emerging but I'd grown up in a world where the regime of the Protectorate had been established. Here people were scared. I only had to look around to realize just _how_ scared they were. Even students. Scared people had this tendency to blame the first available target.

Vigilant, Devin, had been duped. I had little doubt what this little Q & A was going to turn into. I only hoped my guess was wrong.

"Quite a crowd today," noted the professor with a bit of a smile. "Good good! I'm glad to see more people willing to increase awareness of the new perils that face our world today. Now for those of you who haven't attended our previous seminars we have collectively been going over newly appearing Villains as well as known Wardens and threats. Now if anyone has anything to add to the conversation feel free to chime in. This is an open forum, not a lecture." He lectured. He seemed to chuckle to himself as if he were telling some sort of private joke. I was unamused. Beneath his calm, scholarly veneer a degree of contempt seemed to swell from the man, all aimed at Devin.

"Now, lets get started. For some, this might be the first time ever interacting with a super powered individual. Tell us, what can you do Mister Maxworth? Perhaps a demonstration? We in the scientific community always need new evidence to support our theories."

"Its pretty well known what I can do." Vigilant barked.

_I don't actually know yet. Not for sure._

"But for the sake of those who might not know, would you please tell us?" the old professor asked, his professional manner showing that knew exactly how to manipulate a conversation. He reminded me of Coil.

The crowd was surprisingly silent. A few stragglers were still coming up the side paths and sitting down on the large bleachers or on the grass in front if they could find no room or didn't want to cut through people to get to open spaces at the top.

Vigilant sighed. Not a very charismatic man was he.

"I… I can see. All around me. In all directions, up, down, left, right, back, and front. My eyes can see right through the back of my head. Unless I concentrate on it, its like its not even there." He admitted, almost as if he was embarrassed by it.

"Ew…" Tanner whispered conspiratorially to me and Chloe. "Hope he can't see through clothes."

Chloe giggled. I didn't even crack a smile.

"There is more, yes?" Professor Butler asked.

He seemed to pace a bit, running his hand through naturally curly hair. It was unwashed, and dull. There were bags under his eyes. I could tell he'd been missing sleep. Anyone else could've too if they'd bothered to look.

"Yeah, I… Yeah. I can. Move faster. Spidey sense shit you know?" The crowd laughed at that. Spiderman had been a comic before capes started appearing in Earth Bet but his popularity had died when the real thing started happening. Here, this was apparently was some sort of joke, but I didn't get it.

"But I had the power to _do something_. I just happened to be near that bank when shit started to go down. Coincidental as hell." He breathed.

_You did what you thought was right. How many times had I done the same? Would you let yourself be called villain? Monster? So you could do the right thing?_

My respect for Vigilant bumped solid three notches. He was getting a little more comfortable in front of the crowd. He wiped sweat from his brow though and I could tell he was still ridiculously nervous.

"And do you feel you deserve these abilities?"

I was aware of the crowd. They were all focused on the poor guy so intently. He'd probably never been in a school play before let alone talking in front of so many people. I felt nothing but pity for this new Vigilant. He may be able to see in every direction but for all that sight his new ability gave him, he was very blind.

Suddenly something tickled the back of my mind.

"I did before… Now, I wish someone better had gotten them. Someone who could've stopped her." Vigilant said, humbly, staring at his feet.

I slowly turned away from the conversation. Something very insistent was telling me that my focus should not be on the hero and the professor winding him up. No. My focus should be on...

"It have been better if _no one_ had interfered in my opinion," said a stout old woman, who had not yet spoken. She was one of the professors from the panel sitting in chairs now off to the side of the green.

The crowd of students verbally agreed, tittering with whispers.

"Better if these powers were shut down as soon as they are found. That way _no one_ has to worry about people who can take an entire building hostage on a whim," the woman added.

Dumbfounded by the suggestion, Vigilant blinked. "What?"

I let my eyes travel over the crowd. No, not her. Not him. Not the blonde in the front. Not Chloe definitely. Slowly I was turning around, trying to find the person this horrible sense of foreboding was coming from. Multitasking came easily to me. I kept my ear on the conversation but what was truly important was someone else here.

"I said, Mr. Maxworth, that you –what was that word the media has been using recently? Capes?– You capes should be quarantined for a time after your trigger events!" The man spoke rolling right over Devin's protests that he was born here. He wasn't from any other earth.

"Yes. Temporary quarantine, both for your own safety and for ours, until you've learned to use them and learned _when_ to use them! At the very _least! _Do you disagree?"

"Yes!" Devin barked immediately, then floundered. "No… I don't know! You can't just imprison people! That's like an amendment, isn't it? Besides! Triggers aren't something you can control!"

The crowd was voicing its assent, but not with Deviin. Against him. They agreed with the professor.

She was sitting two bleachers behind me and to my left. My eyes stopped on her and I found who I was looking for. Her face had been covered entirely in the video, including her hair. This girl had a bushy head of black locks that hung down to her shoulders and a pair of dark coal eyes. She wore a faded green sweater and dark denim pants that hugged skin tight to her long legs. She was so tan that she could hardly be called caucasian.

She was seething with rage at the professors below. Distressingly, I found that my own hand was clenched into a fist, my lips drawn tight by their words.

I didn't recognize her. But her power. I knew it instantly and with perfect clarity. Obelisk. The girl who could raise granite spikes from the ground at will. A powerful terrakinetic. I'd rated her as a Blaster 4 but it was at least two ranks higher, now that I could feel what she could truly do. Her Obelisks formed in the lower crust of the Earth in moments and she could make them large enough to skewer buildings. They could be a hundred feet tall…

"More and more dangerous people are gaining these unpredictable powers. While I believe the Wardens to be a good idea, those men and women have proven that they are smart enough to know when to act, and when not to. It is people like _you _mister Maxworth that I fear. People all too quick to rush into situations they don't understand. Do you not feel guilty over the death of Alan Waker, the man you led to death by recklessly engaging a known villain? For what? Petty glory?"

I was beginning to really doubt Comerford's degree. Weren't professors supposed to be smart? Any idiot knew that you shouldn't antagonize a known cape. But he didn't even know about the real threat.

Obelisk was seething in her own anger. I didn't know how long she'd been here, only that she was mad enough with the professor's words that she was going to do something about it. Soon.

"Of course I do! I… fuck, I didn't… I just thought…" Devin's head had swayed to professor Comerford, and guilt plastered his face.

_Why, oh why did you come here you ignorant fool? You'll find no sympathy here._

"You want someone to take it out on, huh old faggots?" It was so low that I only heard it because my ear was turned in her direction. Obelisk was mumbling under her breath. "Round us up in a coop?"

Shit. She was actually going to do it. How could I stop this? She was going to murder the professor in front of all these people. Worst of all, she was an idiot! By murdering him in the middle of his anti-capes speech she'd be martyring him! Fucking dammit passenger, couldn't you have just kept quiet? Why did _I _have to know this? Hadn't I done enough?

"Hey, don't you think they're going a little hard on him?" Reid asked Tanner, but tried to keep his voice low enough that we couldn't hear.

"And yet you disagree. You think your kind should be able to do as you please. It was _your_ fault anyone got hurt at all!"

I could feel it. She was forming the spear of stone. Standing on the edge. Why? What did she care about Vigilant for? Because he was a fellow cape? No, that didn't matter. I needed to focus on stopping her. Not her reasons. Her actions.

Couldn't attack her. Suicide. Couldn't use powers, obviously. Couldn't get civilians to safety with any hope for success. No there was only one option.

Be the hero. Fuck it.

"Is _this_ what I came to see?" I spoke loudly so my voice carried.

Eyes shifted, Obelisk's included, trying to find the new voice. Mine.

"Taylor!?" I heard Chloe's shock but pushed it aside. My eyes burned on the professors. I couldn't chance a look at Obelisk but I could feel her easing off the trigger. A little.

More would be needed.

"Is this what you came to teach?" I asked, standing slowly. "Because honestly, go a little bit further. Just a _littl_e. Then put on your pointy white hoods."

"Taylor, what are you doing!?" someone hissed lowly. Chloe? Or one of the boys? Unimportant.

One of the professors spluttered. My biology teacher. "Young lady, you obviously haven't been paying att–!"

"Oh I've been paying perfect attention Butler." I didn't dignify him with his title and the effect showed. "All I see is a group of old men and women trying to get their petty revenge on the one person who stood up."

My heartbeat thundered in my head. Would Obelisk now skewer _me? _I hoped I'd read her right and shutting down the professors would stay her hand. It had worked so far.

"This man is responsible for–!"

I couldn't let them speak. They were wordsmiths after all and much more experienced than I. Shock and awe was my strategy and I had to burst like a firework if I wanted to keep them speechless. I had to make sure they were always trying to keep up. I had to steamroll them utterly, and my dauntless reputation didn't exist here. The more they spoke, the more chance that Obelisk would kill them anyway.

"Is responsible for saving the lives of _every other person_ in that bank?" I interrupted him once again. It occurred to me that if for some reason Obelisk decided to use her power anyway right now, it would be very hard to prove that _I _wasn't her. Our body types were quite similar after all.

I could feel the flashes of cellphone cameras and recordings. This felt familiar. I almost wished I had a table I could sit on. Instead, I slowly began walking down the steps of the amphitheater to the front. The civilians parted for me as smooth as water. I didn't even have to look down.

"You." I said, pointing to a random girl in the front row.

"M-Me?" The girl stuttered, horrified. I smiled. She was perfect.

"Hypothetical situation." I posed taking another step down onto the grass below and walking towards her. I allowed my eyes to sweep over the crowd, ensuring that I had captivated them. I had. "Say tomorrow you gained powers. What do you do? Stay quiet and do nothing, become a hero, or start robbing banks?"

She gulped. Scaredy cat. I hoped she didn't say "do nothing." Didn't have much of a backup plan for that one.

"B-Be a hero… Right?" she turned the phrase into a question. It would do.

"Okay. Now you're a hero. You've got some good powers. Maybe you've joined up with a few teammates. They've got your back."

"Miss, you're interrupting, and I fail to see–!"

"I realize that you fail to see. Let me get to my point and illuminate you." I broke his words before they could trample me.

"Now, Hero." I turned back to my victim and she cringed. "You're fighting bad guys. Real bad guys. They kill people for fun and they'll kill your team if you fuck up even once. They might manage to kill civilians anyway, but if you're not there then they _definitely will_. Do you keep fighting them?"

"I… Uh…"

"Do you keep fighting them?" I demanded. She couldn't give up already. That would ruin the point.

"Yes!" She yelped.

"Good. That's good." I said softly.

Then I turned to the audience. "You're all alive!" I exclaimed, passion burning in my voice, and they flinched. I had to sell it! Had to make the story vivid in their minds or it wouldn't take hold. "She's saved you and stopped a bomb from destroying every last one of you! But everything didn't go according to plan."

The audience, even the professors seemed to hang on my every word. Obelisk seemed entranced too, her spear of granite forgotten beneath the Earth. I slowly slid off my jacket, reveling in the cool air. I wore a tank-top and my arm was clearly visible. My lack of an arm.

"This… happened to her. She gave her arm for you. Risked her life..." I turned back to her while waving my stump. "Obelisk attacks the people this time. You're crippled. Do you let this hinder you? Are you going to let these people die?" I gave a grand gesture with my left hand across the audience and they shuddered all of them as my eyes swept passed.

"No." She said, lower in tone, but with more confidence. "I'll save them. I'd be a hero… I'd always save them."

"Oh and you try, Hero… but is anyone perfect?" I mocked, my voice full of pity. "This time you fail. You beat Obelisk, barely. You're aching. Your legs are broken, and your team fares little better. Despite your efforts these people here on the grass…" I turned to stare at the group sitting at the foot of the bleachers somberly. '...didn't make it."

The girl seemed visibly stricken. Two of her friends were sitting on the ground right below her.

"The people don't like you so much anymore. You see, you've failed them now. Let all their expectations down. Some hero. Couldn't even save these few people here on the grass." I quoted that from somewhere.

"But I tried!" She screamed, and it was my turn to flinch. Were their tears in her eyes? Crap was I making this _too real? _No… I wasn't _that_ good a speaker. _But I've come too far now to stop._

"_You did your best." _Venom dripped from my words. I sneered at her as if she were gum found on the bottom of my shoe. Less. "And you think that's any consolation? Their _friends are dead because you fucked up_. Some even hate you, they feel you're personally responsible for their loss."

I glanced back into the audience. Thankfully, Obelisk seemed every bit as enthralled as everyone else. Maybe I'd been mistaken about her. She was clearly violent. But Bitch had been violent too. I'd seen her viciously murder an innocent looking man, but there were two sides to every story. She looked so hopeful now.

Unlike Chloe, Tanner, and Reid, who now looked downright terrified. Of me. Fuck.

The sun had almost completely left the sky, the clearing now lit almost solely by the large white lights. I shivered under the cold wind.

_Might as well finish it. _

"Blight arrives," I told the poor girl coldly, my eyes staring daggers into hers and she couldn't hold my gaze.

Blight was the only other villain I knew, and I only knew of him due to Chloe's television. He already had a body count of over three hundred. A murderous psychopath whose power withered and decayed everything around him, aging people in a horrid fast forward. His range was tremendous, eclipsed only by his madness.

"Your team is dead or dying around you. You're friends are aging by the minute but lucky you! You're immune. You're the only one left. The only one standing between Blight and everyone else here." I said, again letting the audience know that their lives depended on this girl's answer.

"But he gives you a choice. Walk away. Leave them to him and you can collect what remains of your team… while he kills the people who hated you for failing them."

"I-I…" She tears trailed down her cheeks. She was speechless.

I didn't let her answer. This question wasn't hers to answer. No.

"Devin Maxworth. Vigilant. Do _you_ fight to save _them?" _I asked pointing at the professors, and as one their eyes seemed to lock onto my finger as if I were damning them. "The people who've threatened you with imprisonment? Who've scorned you? Or do you walk away?"

It didn't matter which way he answered really. I had solutions to both. If he did, he really _was _the Hero. If he didn't, then they were to blame.

There was no hesitation in his voice.

"Fuck them…" He said lowly, but his words seemed to echo in the momentary silence. People were so fragile... I nodded slowly as the audience seemed to mull over the moment in heartbreak. Some hugged their friends. Some wept into their hands. A few, a precious few scoffed at me, untaken by my words. But the majority were in shock. _As if they'd been left to die. _Jesus. How _real_ had I made this little play?

"And that…" I said turning finally towards the professors. "Is how you make the one person who might've been able to save you, turn his back."

I stared hard at each professor. I'd silenced them. I'd steamrolled them, these people who were my superiors. I had a feeling Professor Butler's class was going to be infinitely more difficult, but his face was solemn.

"Do you get it now? Don't you see? Vigilant is your damn Hero! He's human, but he's all you've got! When Obelisk comes again? When another villain too strong for police comes to take your money, your _friends_, your _family,_ whose hands do you want to put your life in? The man in that video? I would. _That man_ was doing what he thought was right, and I'd be honored to have him fight for me."

Finally, it seemed the spell I'd cast was broken. The crowd was staring at me and some were wiping their eyes. Guilt painted their faces. Some even lowered their phones, ashamed. Still others seemed afraid of me. Awed. What the hell had I said?

All of them clearly weren't on my side though. There were a few angry mutters. A few growls. A few people who clearly thought I was a nutcase. They wouldn't be far from the mark.

The only important one though, Obelisk, had an unreadable expression on her face. Whatever ability I suddenly had, so different from my bugs, was completely dormant. I could sense nothing from her. But I didn't think she was angry anymore. I'd calmed her down at least. It was difficult to get a read on her without making eye contact.

It would have to be enough. There was nothing else I could've done anyway.

"Tay...lor…" I heard a Chloe's choked voice above cloud of murmurs that rose from the rest of the audience. As if she didn't know what to think of me. What to say.

_Man am I good at making friends..._

The poor girl I'd turned into a hero was bawling, her friends rubbing her on the back consolingly.

I gave a final turn to my professors. None of them had known who I was before, not even Butler whose class I'd sat in for almost two weeks. They knew me _now. _

"I don't respect a single one of you. You're entitled to criticize. People make mistakes… even heroes, and they need to be watched, their actions judged just in case they go power hungry. But is _this how you needed _to tell him? Is this the best way to avenge your friend? Someone he tried to save? Is it best to discourage good people from even trying?"

Every single professor looked like they'd spent the afternoon kicking a puppy.

I'd won.

I locked eyes for a moment with Devin, who nodded back at me. I turned and began the slow walk home, sliding my jacket over my shoulders as I went. As it fanned out behind me in the wind, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could pull off wearing a cape.

…

Nah.


	3. A Normal Day

**Disclaimer: **

Once again, Worm is the property of Wildbow and its fucking awesome. If you've somehow made it to this chapter without reading it I pity you. I really really do. You're missing out on one of the great things this world has to offer.

Special thanks to MarkerIV for his awesome editz and now for turning his own pen to an Interlude of his own that will be released in the not so distant future! And a great whelming thanks to the people at Spacebattles who make writing more fun than I've ever had. Almost fun enough to get me to leave entirely... but 11 years of loyalty is hard to break. In fact though, some of their comments were directly lifted and used for this chapter which I found just awesome.

Sorry about the formatting for that by the way but makes comment/forum style nearly impossible.

Enjoy the chapter, Suped up for those few of you who haven't already read it on the forum. ^_^

**Chapter Three: A Normal Day**

Friday. Even ex-capes like me felt a certain sense of joy when such days finally rolled around. After today I could sequester myself in my room and barricade my door and hope this whole thing blew over. Maybe Chloe and Sophia would just… ignore it?

_Seriously? Who am I kidding?_

I contemplated skipping my first class. Skipping the whole day even. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Dad had worked so hard to get me here, and while I knew I'd helped a little with whatever part time jobs I could find, it would never be enough to assuage the guilt I'd feel if I forsook the classes he'd paid for in the first week.

So I got up and rolled my shoulders. Last night had been horrible for me and for everyone else. I'd walked home so of course they'd all beaten me back to the apartment. Tanner, Reid, Sophia, and Chloe sitting around our newly furnished apartment acting nothing like the college students they were. Talking. _Quietly._ It was a measure of how much I'd spooked them that none of them even said a word to me when I entered.

"T-Taylor." Sophia had managed to eek out. She hadn't actually been at the rally. The others had probably demonized me already.

I'd felt guilt at the time. Guilt of all things. Guilt for ruining their cape seminar. Powers were all brand new and sparkly to them. Had I crushed their dreams and hopes? Maybe. I couldn't stand the looks they gave me right then.

"If… if you want me to go find somewhere else to stay I can. I just need a few days..." Is what I think I'd managed to say. I charged passed their little congregation around the table and plunged into my room, ignoring their use of my name.

How was I so god damn good at being a villain? I scared civilians shitless even when I fucking _was one. _

After the night of largely sleepless rest I did manage to feel a little better.

I was up earlier than anyone else thankfully and so I was able to slip out of the apartment and slide into the street for my morning run with no one the wiser. Long habit had woken me and I took off down the main road towards the college.

I'd made the run every other day this week and had felt wonderful about it. Warm sunlight, cool air, and the ability to show my face fearlessly as I had for an entire year. I had reveled in my anonymity. Just like the _last_ time I had believed myself anonymous, my revelry was quickly crushed.

No longer a nameless face, I found people staring. Was I imagining it? Students awake for the earliest of classes slowly making their way across the lots towards the school gasped at the sight of me. One boy even dropped his books as I came into view.

I had gone from no one to celebrity in the course of an evening. What were they saying about me? That crazy girl who yelled at professors? Likely. The girl who stood up for capes? If I was lucky. The cripple who'd brought a grown college girl to tears? Fuck, why did that girl have to make such a big deal of it? I'd have picked another person if I'd known she'd react so strongly!

By the time I got halfway down my normal route I couldn't take it anymore and turned back. Sometimes I thought that my panic and confusion as Khepri, when I couldn't recognize anyone, had stuck with me and lingered still. A boy had smiled at me warmly and it took a moment for me to recognize the gesture for what it was. He probably hadn't been there last night.

I returned the gesture as best I could with one of my own. I doubted he'd have many smiles for me when he knew who I was, but it didn't hurt to try. A first impression could go a long way.

I arrived back home in record time, fiddling with my keys to get the door open.

It opened itself and Chloe stood there, fully dressed with Sophia right behind her.

"Oh Taylor!" She exclaimed with a great sigh of relief. To my shock, the girl wrapped her arms around me, standing on her tiptoes to embrace me in a full on hug.

Dumbly, I stood there uncomprehending.

"Uh… I… Hi Chloe."

Sophia had a weird smile on her face. I couldn't really read her expression very well but I thought it might be wry amusement. "Saw the video of last night. You got balls, Taylor."

I blinked. That was… unexpected. Chloe's grip around my neck seemed to tighten and I let my arms mechanically wrap around her.

"We… after what you said last night we didn't wanna bug you. We thought we'd let you sleep and then talk to you in the morning but you were gone so we thought… well you said you were gonna try and leave so-!"

"We don't want you to leave! You're awesome, so don't leave!" Chloe simplified Sophia's meandering words by yelling them into my shoulder. I was forced to lean down into her hug as she planted her heels firmly on the ground and pulled me down to her level.

"You uh… don't mind? Me staying?"

"Skinny, you have got to tell me how you did that. Do you know how many times I've wanted to slap Professor Comerford? His fucking face… that alone was priceless!" Sophia's crude voice was drawing a snicker from my lips before I even realized it.

Slowly, Chloe dropped my neck and I was allowed to stand back up to my full height.

"Hey uh, we were going to go get some breakfast at this diner I know. You and Chloe are both new in town so… uhm. You wanna come?" Sophia's hair trigger confidence that she'd shown all week had been muffled but definitely not extinguished by the revelation the video must have caused.

"Sure!" I said feeling uncharacteristically bright. "I… yeah. Do you mind if I shower quick?"

"No problem. First class is at 10 for both of us. Plenty of time." Chloe said. I dutifully ignored the girl's reddened cheeks as she mumbled. "We were going to look for you."

A small bit of my heart warmed at that. Living with them for this week had been fun. I held them at arms distance of course. I held _everyone _at arms distance. But… their little invites, their inclusion of me, despite how gawky and weird I knew I came across as… they felt nice.

Peace. Well. Maybe my definition of peace didn't have to be out of the spotlight. There was probably no going back to anonymity now. Really, what had I actually revealed? That I was passionate about capes not being discriminated against? That I was maybe a little crazy and that I'd somehow lost my arm?

Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. My fifteen minutes, as it were.

"If… you don't mind me asking." Chloe prodded as I stepped through the doorway and back towards my room. "Uhm… are you… a hero? The way you spoke last night… it felt so real, the story you made. I was pretty fucking scared of you Taylor. Like, damn near piss myself scared. That's not a power is it? Terrifying speeches?"

"No powers." I sort of lied calmly. The way I'd felt Obelisk's abilities wasn't sitting well with me. "But that situation I made up?" I paused holding open my door before turning to face the girl. "That's all too real."

I thought of my territory as I showered and got ready. The people I'd fought Mannequin for. They'd hated me at the time but slowly I had won their love, even though I was a villain. I thought of Weaver too. The Wards who I'd never quite become a part of. Had I been a Hero to the end? The people had hated me but I'd done what I thought was right and gave everything to stop Scion. I'd succeeded. Did that make me a better Hero than Vigilant, who had turned away?

No. I couldn't compare the situations. They hated me because of _the way_ I'd saved them. Not that I'd failed them. Still it struck a chord in my mind. It was like kicking villain ass with butterflies. To be a hero, not only did you have to succeed, but you had to do it how they wanted you to. Fail in either, and you failed at both.

When I stepped out into the living room again, Chloe had her laptop out. They were both staring at it, transfixed.

_The YouTube video._ I cringed. I didn't want to be famous for even fifteen minutes! But what other choice did I have?

I crossed in front of them and circled behind the couch to stare over their shoulders.

My jaw dropped.

"A _million!?" _I gasped.

"Y-Yeah. You… really know how to swing a crowd." Chloe's eyes turned from the video and she looked up at me. "Not all for you though. You didn't see what happened with the crowd and Vigilant after you left. Here, look!"

I watched as a muted crowd seemed to slowly bleed away from the bleachers. It would've been silent if not for the girl who could hardly stop her sobs down in the front row. Whoever was taking the video had been in the top stands, his camera focused as one by one people approached an increasingly flabberghasted Vigilant."

"Don't forsake us…"  
>"We're sorry. I'm sorry. Never would've come here if I'd known…"<br>"You wouldn't really abandon us like that… would you?"  
>"You didn't deserve this. Girl was right…"<p>

A precious few, somehow unwilling to break the somber mood were still caught on camera glaring heatedly at the man for abandoning them in my scenario. For being anything less than perfect.

What in the hell had I _done_ to these people? The walked with haunted eyes, shoulders taut and heads bowed. The effect was horrifyingly similar to the students at Arcadia after Brockton Bay had become ground zero. Maybe I DID have a different power. This was just _weird. _I hadn't been trying to sway opinions, or terrify anyone! Just keep Obelisk from skewering people!

But somehow I knew that this was no power. Just the effect my presence had on people.

...I really needed to stop using Jack Slash as a role model for public speaking. And I probably needed to find that girl and apologize. Quickly. Jeez she really looked awfully fucked up.

The comments section was horrendous. Just from the first page I could see some shit that just wasn't going to go away.

IneedaHero

30 seconds ago

We're all dead :-(

Likes 0 Dislikes 6

Randomdude47

17 seconds ago

No shit, we are totally fucked.

Likes 0 Dislikes 0

LightHedge

20 seconds ago

So sad, we don't have Vigilant to protect us... At least we got cripple girl! *laughs*

Likes 2 Dislikes 5

Spindleass

30 seconds ago

Duuude this chick is fucking crazy! She made that girl cry her heart out right there! Oh man I'm shivering and I'm a hundred miles away! Her name's Taylor?

Likes 4 Dislikes 0

SoftRogue

30 seconds ago

You know, I can't help but focus on that poor girl the cripple picked on and used/abused for her speech...

Likes 8 Dislikes 0

UnrepentantJoker

30 seconds ago

I know right... That was some funny shit.

Likes 3 Dislikes 19

Emogirl932

30 seconds ago

Vigilant is so dark… I'd thought he was such a bitch before in the bank video but _now…. mmMMMmm._

Likes 0 Dislikes 23

Inoright

17 seconds ago

Would be so fun to show Vigilant my appreciation... ;-)

Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Thirsty_One

5 seconds ago

You are such a slut ino...

Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Erik-Jonas1990

33 seconds ago

Faake! This shit is so staged! You can tell the "Hero" girl is completely faking it.

Likes 1 Dislikes 12

Chandalier003

17 seconds ago

But if its not? Look at her. She's seriously freaking out.

Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Peanuckle

39 seconds ago

That speech gave me goosebumps.

Likes 13 Dislikes 0

Capeh4t3

39 seconds ago

No kidding. Did you see how she turned that crowd into putty? No way she isn't a cape.

Likes 5 Dislikes 2

PossiblyEnos

18 seconds ago

Naw, the girl lost her arm, is in college and just not afraid to speak up in such a situation. It is far more likely that she is a former soldier who got wounded in Afghanistan.

Likes 6 Dislikes 1

Wanderer17

40 seconds ago

Anyone else think that this girl might be in danger? If Obelisk sees this video I bet she tries to kill her. Blight? Brrr..

Likes 2 Dislikes 4

CrazyShapes

42 seconds ago

The way she talks… It's like she _knows._ You think maybe she's a cape? I mean look at her arm. Look close at the scarring. That thing was _cauterized! _

Likes 7 Dislikes 10

FitnessFreak42

30 seconds ago

There's noooo way you can tell that just by looking. The thing's clearly been healed for over a year. Bullshit CrazyShapes. But you're kinda right about the way she talks. Like maybe she was THERE you know?

Likes 9 Dislikes 2

CyverHero

23 seconds ago

I bet she got a bitchin awesome power. Like instant crowd control! Did you see how she made everyone shut up? Like terror power. I'm shitting myself just watching this.

Likes 1 Dislikes 0

STAR_Sarah-Culbert

47 seconds ago

That's Taylor Hebert! She sits right behind me in my Calc class! But I never knew she was missing her arm! She hid it so well! I can't even believe this! She seems so normal over the past week I've known her. Real quiet type.

Likes 154 Dislikes 120

Scion_Suxxxx

35 seconds ago

Its always the quiet ones…

Likes 14 Dislikes 14

SoftRogue

35 seconds ago

Bet you she gets headhunted to by the feds to speak for the new Wardens straight outta college.

Likes 14 Dislikes 3

Sharp_Dale7

15 seconds ago

Girl has a Charisma score of 30!

Likes 2 Dislikes 7

EPICwin

55 seconds ago

One four year ticket to college - $25,000

One bus ride to parahuman meeting - $2.50

Getting to hear this girl shut DOWN the faculty - $Priceless!

Likes 45 Dislikes 0

_Fuck you Sarah Culbert! Dammit!_

It almost felt like being outed again. Thankfully Chloe stopped scrolling so I couldn't see anymore. 1,274,993 views in one night. Was that a record? It hadn't even been 12 hours yet.

The page cut off at the bottom there and I didn't want to see anymore. So they were guessing. Speculating. That didn't mean anything. All I had to do if asked was deny, really. What were they going to do, demand I use my powers? Hah.

At most they would assume, and rightly so, that I was a refugee from Earth Bet. Just one of quite a few others who'd escaped into this world before the portal had been closed. I just really hoped none of them saw this and connected me to… Weaver.

That was unlikely anyway. I'd changed significantly since then. My last major appearance on television had been when the fight against Behemoth had leaked all over the internet. After that I was only in a few skirmishes that rarely ever made television. I'd been almost camera shy after being so exposed. I'd gotten taller, my hair was a lot longer. My arm was missing of course so that was a big difference and…

I sighed, slumping down into one of the chairs at the table behind the couch. Who was I kidding…? This would never go away.

Fuck doing the right thing! Obelisk could have her damn murders next time this shit happens. I'm staying out of it! And buying a cabin! In the woods. In Canada!

Of course I'm sure that conviction will last all of twenty minutes with my luck. Probably run into another situation that only I could resolve before lunchtime!

I groaned, and Sophia patted me on the shoulder. In a bit of a slump, I made my way to the corner where I'd made my prosthetic stand a home and slid the rubber tube up my stump, preparing to attach the limb.

Sophia owned a bright red sports car that 'screamed' rich daddy. Maybe it would've been sexy to other people but I found her clearly wealthy background to be off putting at times.

At the moment, I loved it. I didn't want to walk to school at all.

Breakfast was quick and pretty quiet, but not at all uncomfortable. They wanted me here, the both of them. They had awoken hours before either of them had needed to and had determined that I had gone apartment hunting on foot, determined to find me. I laughed at how silly it was and it embarrassed them a little but walking away from breakfast that morning, I felt a little bit closer to the two. Maybe I could share some secrets with them.

Just a bit.

I decided I'd tell them I was a refugee from Earth Bet tonight. That was probably not very hard to guess anyway. It would spawn a bunch of questions about capes and the end of the world and Scion but that was okay. Tempt them with a secret they'd already sorta guessed and maybe they wouldn't notice the bigger one you were hiding right under their feet.

Or so I hoped.

I stepped into my first class at five till 9, Sophia and Chloe having left to the rec center and the library respectively to wait for their own classes. Conversations ground to an instantaneous halt, all eyes turning to me.

I took a few steps forward, watching as their heads turned comically with my path towards my desk on the far side of the room. I stopped in front of the teacher's desk, my eye lingering long and hard on Sarah Culbert before I swept them over the rest of the room.

The girl visibly gulped.

The teacher wasn't here yet but that wasn't unusual. I'd only been here a week but Mr. Crowbes had already made it abundantly clear that he would never be on time for his own class.

"What're you all staring at!?" I growled, shocking them. "So I don't have an arm. No reason to go all slackjawed."

It obviously wasn't the arm that was making them stare, but I pretended and they turned their eyes away, attempting and failing to start up little conversations. It would have to do.

I sat down at my desk and pulled out my Calc book, staring out the window into the late summer sunshine…

"Did that happen to you?" Someone asked. Some brave, brave girl.

I turned, unsure if the question was directed at me. It was loud, and those little fake conversations stopped again.

I found a shy looking girl with cropped blonde hair staring in my direction, her lower lip quivering. God dammit, I was a freaking gawky teenager! I'm just not that scary!

"Did your story… last night. Is that what happened to you?" She asked, gathering courage.

I stared at her for a long moment and let my face break out into a small smile.

"No." I told her resolutely, but my words carried through the silence of the classroom. "It was just a story… I hated what those professors were saying to that guy. Like I said, his only crime was trying to do what was right. I just… wanted to show where letting something like last night continue could lead to."

That seemed to settle the girl and the class seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief.

"I… guess I got a little carried away." I put forth feebly.

Some managed to laugh at that, and it was as if the tension melted away. A boy at the back smiled at me, and I blinked, recognizing him. I'd seen him on my run this morning. Painfully pale, he'd probably never even seen full sunlight before, preferring instead, the artificial lights of a gym. He was fit, heavily so, with a bit of stubble that he pulled off well. Brown hair cut short, and green eyes covered a face that didn't look like it had ever seen a speck of acne.

Nothing like Grue really, but attractive all the same.

I beamed at him. He'd made me feel a little better when I'd thought I'd drowned all chance of normality this morning. Here he was doing it again, with only that smile, and a small nod before he broke eye contact.

Mr. Crowbes chose that moment to walk in and he began without preamble as was his custom. He didn't even spare a glance for me. It felt wonderful. I sighed as a full hour of window gazing, and trying to understand what the hell a derivative was lulled me into an even greater feeling of relief.

Class let out after that hour and contrary to the students mild awe from before, I now found them actively engaging me in conversation.

"Hey Taylor. Listen, there's a party tonight. If ya wanna go, give me a call. Love to get to know ya more." said a rather sly looking pair of eyes and a smirk that could rival Tattletale at her worst. As he confidently handed me a torn scrap of paper with a name and a number on it, I consciously catalogued him as a creep. I would not be attending _any_ party hosted by this boy.

"What's your last name? Hubert? I'm Katie Dillen! I'll facebook you, kay? Uhm. Sorry about the whole staring thing earlier." Said an older looking girl, almost too old to be a college student from my view.

"It's Hebert. E. B. E." I replied making my usual correction, and the girl nodded.

"Hey so, what you did last night? That was pretty brave. Saw the video. You got guts standing up to the professors like that. You should seriously join the speech club. Frankly, I don't think we could ever lose another debate with you on our team."

I blinked. Recruitment? I blinked again. Then I laughed. The request had been so unexpected, so painfully _normal_ that I could hardly stop it. "I might do that!"

Both of these conversations managed to hit me before I'd even reached the exit as people filed out of the room. Somewhat childishly as I walked down the stairs towards my next and final class of the day, hoping that boy would talk to me. No such luck. He was gone.

Despite the little twinge I found myself not caring too much as Sarah Culbert shyly approached me, her head lowered and trying vainly to mumble out an apology. She already knew what for.

She was so damn pathetic about it that I forgave her on the spot. Hell she'd given out my name in the last 45 seconds of comments that I'd seen; someone else had probably given it out on that video much earlier than her.

Biology did not go quite so well.

I entered my ten o'clock class, noting that there were a few people from my math class before who were no longer stone cold stumped at what to say about me. The girl last class had broken the ice and rumor was already spreading. I was just a civil rights activist. I had a thing against bullies really. Not a fallen hero. The students didn't all pause to stare at me this time, though a few did.

This class had a different sort of coldness. Professor Butler stood, leaning easily on his desk and upon entering his eyes locked on me with a sort of cold fury that I could picture on very few faces. Sophia's maybe. Shadow Stalker was pretty damn good at fury, cold or hot.

My turn to be rendered silent, I slowly slid by him and hoped that I hadn't provoked him somehow. Last night he'd seemed pretty contrite. Today, something entirely different.

"Good morning class." He said glibly once everyone had reached their seats. A small smattering of replies greeted him from us and he began to do that pacing teacher thing.

This class contained upwards of a hundred students but Professor Butler had a knack for remembering people's names. Mine hadn't been important to him but he had seemed to grade the papers I'd returned him fairly, despite the notes about my handwriting.

"I am going to assume most of you have seen the video of last night's seminar, yes? Hmm." He said, his voice deep and rich. I had called him a wordsmith last night and it was definitely true.

"Unfortunately, being compared to the Ku Klux Klan has cast a rather bad light upon me and my fellow teachers. I _don't_ feel the reference was warranted, but after seeing the video for myself, from the perspective of my audience I can understand how that result might've been reached."

Oh fuck… I hadn't gotten this old guy fired had I? You could tell by the happy way he interacted with most of his students that not only had he had some of them in other classes before but that he was a well liked sort. He was also a very _good_ teacher. The type who had a lot of open office hours and was never condescending about helping students who didn't understand something.

"My tenure, and my job in fact along with that of my colleagues who have it, has been called into question." There was a small gasp from the collected students. Pity? Sadness. "Before I continue, I want to let you all know that none of the fault for this belongs to any of you." His eyes lingered hard on me. "_Any of you." _

I felt a lump of guilt in my throat. Wordsmith indeed.

"I… realize this might sound a bit out of character, and many of you I haven't known for more than this past week." His voice suddenly went a bit softer. Garnering pity perhaps? "But for those of you that have, or perhaps those of you willing to grant an old man a mistake or two, It would be very helpful if you could attend a hearing with the principal and board of directors on the twelfth of October at 2 pm in the administrative building, Room 312. While I don't expect any of you to speak in our defense," his eyes lingered on me again. "I admit that any thoughts you have would be appreciated."

A month and a half or so away. A long wait for an older man to worry about his job. Lots of stress. Fuck, he might even trigger. _Goddamnit. _Not coldness. What I'd mistaken for coldness on his face had been his almost unbearable _worry. _Apparently that was how he showed worry to a class that he'd been teaching for over a decade.

It worked. I felt pity for him. I felt the waves of pity that came from others, and I knew that I'd be attending a Saturday afternoon hearing in his defense.

Dammit all. What happened to my convictions earlier! He _might_ just be faking! Probably is in fact!

As my paper came back: B+ upped from a B- with several margin comments about my handwriting scratched out vigorously, I couldn't help but think he was trying to bribe me, but not seem like it. That too, was working pretty well.

He continued with the class and managed to do a passable job of pretending he _wasn't_ horrified about the meeting.

I found biology, the subject not the class itself, a hell of alot easier than math. It, along with all of my courses really, were gen-eds: Classes you had to take for bachelors in pretty much anything. I still had no idea what I planned to major in, only that I had a few years to make a decision and that I didn't want anything to do with biology, despite my aptitude for it.

I wandered out of class slowly. There were a few more stares directed my way this time but nothing like the blatant awe in the faces of my Math class this morning.

I ate where I worked. One of the many cafeterias spaced out about the campus. Work Study was a pretty convenient program that let you work for the school for a couple hours a day at slightly over minimum wage. Even so it was easy money since, crippled as I was, all I had to do was punch what people bought into a computer and swipe their Student IDs.

I ran through the line at first, nodding and waving to a few of the people I'd met over the course of the week, serving food behind the cafeteria line. A good half of them stopped and stared at me, silently mouthing my name. I continued on passed them before it could get awkward, collecting a wrapped deli sandwich rather than waiting for one of them to snap out of their stupor and spoon a bit of beef stew onto my tray.

Something no one really tells you about missing a right arm is how inconvenient it is. Obvious really, but the effect doesn't really sink in until you've tried to fish a thin plastic id card out of a wallet that holds 40 different ones with only your left hand.

After an embarrassingly long time trying to get the thing out of my billfold, the girl at the counter where I would be working in an hour staring at me wide eyed all the while, I handed her my card and then slowly balanced my tray all the way to one of the tables. Most of them were full during this time but I could usually find a spot relatively secluded to spend the hours before my work study rolled around.

While I ate I contemplated the irony of the bug girl working in the food industry, and laughed about how appalled management would be if they knew my references. After a while, once all I had left was a small container of applesauce I pulled a book out of my backpack and began to read.

So engrossed was I in the adventures of this little kid sent to a wizarding school, that I didn't care to look up when someone sat across from me, setting down their own tray. Must have been a busy day, I reconned.

"Hypothetical Situation." The words were dark and menacing and directed at me.

I raised my eyes.

Obelisk occupied the seat across from me, smiling, her dark bushy hair, dark tan, and dark eyes, contrasting her brightly colored yellow shirt under a denim jacket I could've seen Emma wearing.

"A girl's silly little speech makes you into a supervillain renowned throughout the nation, when all you were trying to do was the _right thing_," the black haired girl said with a smile on her face.

I tried to be afraid. I really tried to pretend her speech was getting to me, but this girl didn't scare me. This girl who'd managed one kill in her one debut on the national theatre. Yes she could skewer me like a shish kabob and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. That didn't make her _intimidating._ Not to _me. _

I held her gaze neutrally, somewhat annoyed about having to put down _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. _

"Murder, is very rarely the right thing." I said, appreciating the change of position. It had been a long time since I'd killed Coil in cold blood, and Alexandria in hot. I didn't regret those choices now, but that didn't make being a murderer easier.

As I looked at this girl, confidence brimming out of her every pore, I could tell that it was all fake. She was falling apart inside, consumed by the same guilt that had once swarmed my every emotion.

"And if it _was?" _She demanded. "If he was so bad that he _deserved to die? _Would that justify the person who got the job done?"

I shrugged turning and draping my working arm over the back of the chair. The room was filled with conversations and no one could hear ours. "It tends to be better for the murderer's image if the victim is _known_ to be… evil." I said. Not really the best word choice but it would have to do.

"That doesn't answer anything."

"Sure it does. Its the answer to everything. _How it looks _could've been a thousand times better. Could've blackmailed him. Threatened him to turn himself in. Bigass spear from between the legs is pretty intimidating but our hypothetical murderer in this situation went from 0 to full throttle without considering the options in between."

"Ah fuck, What do _you_ know?" She scoffed, disregarding my words.

"More than you could ever fucking imagine," I told her.

We had locked eyes, neither straying nor blinking during the entire conversation. She turned away. She'd appeared so confident but once again my charisma had managed to intimidate her.

We sat in silence for a little while, and I spooned some applesauce. It was really good today.

"Lame power." She told me finally. "Recognizing me… sensor type? Something like that?"

I said nothing. Let her think what she wanted.

"Huh, but you haven't outed me yet. Well, nice meeting you I guess. Nicer than I expected anyway. We'll talk again." She said, standing, managing to quiver only a little as she did so.

As she turned to walk around the table I stopped her with my eyes. Holding her with my gaze as surely as if I'd wrapped her in spider silk.

"Wh-what?" She asked after a while.

"If I were a murderer… who thought she'd done the right thing… I'd try to get proof. Then I'd hope to make _everyone_ see it." I said lightly.

Slowly, very slowly, she nodded, and I saw her gulp. Cute. She really _was_ afraid of me. I released her, and she fled. Actually fled out the door. I watched her through the window. By the time she got out of the building she took off at a dead run.

When she was gone, I pushed back the tray and rested my forehead on my hand, tiredly wishing this nightmare of capes would have just left me alone.

_What the hell are you doing Taylor? _

* * *

><p><strong>End Chapter<strong>


	4. Skitter

**Disclaimer: **Nope. Worm isn't mine. Only wish I could write something so awesome. For those of you who have found Worm because of _my_ fanfic? That feels great. Bet you're just as disappointed Taylor's story is done as I am.

Special thanks to MarkerIV and Spacebattles! 10k Chapter here. Hope you all enjoy!

**Chapter Four: Skitter**

Three days later, Sunday night, I was still trying to work up the nerve to tell them. Tell them anything. _Anything_ at all. They were… painfully patient with me. I think they could tell I wanted to say something but the both of them had come to an odd sort of understanding.

_Keep me_ from talking about my past. The two of them were quite good at it.

They had seen my feelings, seen how I could rage when thinking about the past, and what I could do with my voice. Neither of them wanted that apparently. Instead, if I tried to bring up anything regarding what had happened at the seminar they derailed me, instead focusing on the boys, school, my hair, Sophia's car, Chloe's cooking, or _anything_ to keep me from dwelling on whatever I'd wanted to bring up.

I wasn't sure if they were doing it to be sweet or if they were just afraid I'd pull out _evil Taylor._

We were sitting in the living room watching the television when I decided it was time to spill the beans. I was only a bit tired from my work at the cafeteria and no one had really attempted to engage me in conversation. A good lot of students at school weren't aware of my video, and by the end of the day I had began to feel good about the idea of this all blowing over. It probably would… as long as I could keep my damn mouth shut at any rate.

Sophia and Chloe had gone out of their way to avoid trigger topics with me. My video had reached five million views I knew but still, it seemed the outbreak was contained. Some study revealed a simple fact that I hadn't taken into account.

_All _video's with _Heroes_ had a shit ton of views. The glamour of it all still hadn't worn off for this world. People wanted powers, wanted to know how to get them, and wanted to know everything about everyone who had ever had them. Just the idea of it made people in this world giddy, because there weren't many disadvantages. No birdcage if your power was dangerous. No Case 53s to make you gruesome or repulsive. No Endbringers to be fought if you didn't want the public's hatred. There were only a small few cases of powers going wrong.

But those that went wrong here went _horribly wrong. _

There were plenty of villains though. Never a shortage of those. Normal people wanted to be safe from those that had already proven themselves evil. Blight. Ganon. Jeremy Lodestone, a cape who'd killed people _for_ calling him by his media given title "Massacre." The very few that had actually died while triggering were apparently not enough of a concern to make people want to avoid getting powers of their own.

Death by trigger event was rare. So rare in fact that some people were still attributing a few of the deaths to chemistry or bombs. Most shards were still directed by whatever Eden had set in place to generate the Manton Effect it seemed, even Scion's. Still, some few were slipping through the cracks.

That was my best guess anyway. Not much else could explain what some of the stories were telling. Exploded brains, autopsies revealing mush inside of a perfectly intact skull. The man who had developed poisonous skin, which had of course _poisoned him_. Spontaneous _freezing_. One particularly horrifying case reminded me of Gray Boy's victims: a woman stabbing herself repeatedly but not dying. A regeneration that became more painful with each new injury. She'd been driven out of her mind. I suspected she'd triggered due to her chronic hives. As far as anyone knew she was still unable to kill herself. Still screaming in a padded white room somewhere now. I pitied her.

Chloe was cooking something. Steam rose around her and carried with it a scent of potatoes of some sort. The girl _loved _to cook unlike every other college student I'd ever met, and we tended to be decent taste testers. Sophia loudly protested Chloe's failures while I happily accepted anything she made.

"Hey… you guys… Can, uhm. Can we talk?" I asked quietly.

"Sure, what's up Skinny?" Sophia asked with a smirk. Now certain that the nickname irked me, the girl had taken to using it constantly.

"I-!"

A hard knock came at the door. I cocked a questioning eyebrow at Sophia who shrugged. Who would be here at seven in the evening? Probably Tanner and Reid again. The two stuck to Chloe like butter to toast, which was okay. I liked them both alright enough but I didn't want them here for any secret spilling.

"I got it!" Chloe yelled. The kitchen was closer to the door than me or Sophia so I leaned back into the couch relaxing.

"Uh, hello sir?" Chloe's voice echoed from the doorway. Sophia looked at me and I shrugged. Sir?

"Hi. This is where Taylor lives right? Is she in?" My father's voice came in through the sound of crickets chirping outside.

"Uh yeah sure. Could I tell her who you are?"

"That's my Dad!" I shouted towards the front door, standing.

"Oh! You're Taylor's dad? Nice to meet you!" Chloe said brightly. Sophia got up and followed me as I headed towards the front door.

I ran up to him around Chloe and gave him a hug, which he returned warmly. "Not that I don't appreciate the visit but its a little late. Something going on?" I asked after he let me go.

He gave me a sort of skeptical stare that said '_Really? You're supposed to be clever.' _

"I think you know why I'm here, Taylor." He said, a little bit offended.

"Uh, yeah. Well uhm. Come in! You… want some food? I'm sure Chloe wouldn't mind!" I was kind of nervous and I didn't really know why. My dad was one of the few people who I was terrified of disappointing, even now after all that had happened.

"No offence, Chloe I presume?" He asked her, to which she nodded. "I kind of just need to talk my daughter alone for a minute."

I nodded too. "Y-yeah, alright. We can talk in my room."

My dad nodded politely to the two girls but followed me through the living room to my room and closed the door behind him briskly.

I sat down on my bed, sulking a little.

"I… I had to do it." I said before he could try to squish a reason out of me.

His long suffering sigh made me cringe. "I know you did. You always _have to_ for some reason or another."

Guilt plagued me. He wanted so much for me to be close with him like we used to be. A year of trying and it had happened. We'd become something like father and daughter again. I could guess how he felt though. Not two days out of the proverbial nest and I was already flying into the fire.

"Someone would've died if I hadn't spoken up." I said, trying to make it sound like I wasn't making excuses.

He threw up his hands in exasperation. "It's been _two days! _And your powers… you told me your powers were gone. You couldn't _possibly_ have found a life or death situation that quickly!"

"Keep it down Dad! They're right outside!" I barked at him. He ignored me. If anything he got louder.

"Christ Taylor…!" He trailed off, burning with frustration at his own impotence.

I cringed at his tone. He hated yelling at me but I knew about his temper. I'd inherited it after all. I met his eyes and squared my shoulders. I knew I was in the right. He did too, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

"I did what I had to do." I told him firmly. The truth. The only truth I knew.

"You aren't a parahuman again are you? At least tell me that. Your powers aren't back are they?" He asked, his voice rising a little. He was angry, and he had every right to be really. "God dammit, how am I supposed to keep you safe if you keep… Taylor, it was government mandated that we keep our heads down when they gave us citizenship here!"

"I know! I know… but I just couldn't let those professors get killed! There wasn't any time! I couldn't think of anything else! I..."

_I'm sorry. _

The words didn't come. I wouldn't apologize for doing the right thing. What it always seemed to come down to. The _right damn thing._

He slumped down onto the bed laying his head in his hands.

"Dad?" I asked trying to understand his frustration. He was _so angry, _and yet so sad_. _

He slid his hand down his face, wiping his eyes as he did. They were red from a weariness that seemed beyond sleep and I had no doubt that most of that was because of me. When he spoke again his voice was raspy. Wistful even. "Don't you know how much you worry me Taylor? You just can't help saving the world, can you? Its not even _in you_ to back down and let someone else handle it, is it?"

"Mm _your _daughter," I feebly mumbled.

He barked a bitter laugh, and his face sagged further into his hand. Drops of liquid were glistening between his knuckles. "That's no excuse! _I never _humiliated my professors on national television. _I never_ fought villains. Enbringers! _Scion!_"

My mumbling became even more feeble, not the least of which because I was certain Chloe and Sophia were probably trying to do their best to hear us and Dad was only getting _louder._ I felt rotten. The knot of guilt in my throat seemed to be robbing me of breath, and no telling myself that what I'd done was right could help to assuage it.

"If I hadn't someone would've gotten…! There wasn't anyone else to…! I had to…" Each new way I tried to convince him only made him more– what was he? Exasperated to tears? No matter what he did, his daughter couldn't stop painting targets on her own back. Fuck, why didn't I just stay in my damn seat?

"How? What made _you the only one _who could talk out for that man? What made you have to, Taylor?" He finally asked after the silence had stretched a crater between us. "Why only you?"

Why was it only me? I didn't know. I didn't understand what was happening to me. A new trigger? A new power. Fucking hell what could I tell him that would make him stop crying? Lie! I'd lie and make some shit up!

"I… _could feel it." _I almost whispered. I knew what it would imply. I was a cape again. It wasn't entirely true, because I wasn't even certain what it was I'd felt. The feelings I got around capes, recognizing them and what they could do, felt nothing like my old powers had. But it definitely wasn't just intuition. _Something_ had happened. I didn't _want_ to lie to him. Not him. He and Anne Rose were the only ones I could be honest with. I'd done so well at opening up. Making myself… _human again_. Trying so hard to be okay, to come to terms with everything that I had broken and everything I'd saved.

He nodded, seeming to accept that. It was enough.

"Taylor, you're… you're killing me. God, when I saw you on that stage, I thought it was happening all over again. My little girl was speaking on television again and I didn't _recognize her!_ I don't know if I was more afraid for you or… or _of you."_

A spike of guilt caught in my throat. My eyes _stung_. I felt like I'd been slapped.

_Goddammit._

I stood and wrapped my arms around him fiercely, squeezing him for all I was worth. "It won't happen again." I whispered. "I… won't do that to you again."

His hug felt really good.

"I guess… we had a good year didn't we?" He asked as if I were about to leave his life entirely all over again.

"We'll have plenty more." I assured him feeling his hands rubbing my back, and subconsciously doing the same to him. "Its… not as bad as last time. Different. Not nearly as noticeable, and it only happened twice. It could've just been a fluke."

"I think you and I both know that's not true," He murmured into my shoulder. I felt a wetness there.

"It doesn't matter. If… if they come back I'll tell you. I'll tell you the minute I feel it! I promise I'll tell you dammit! You won't find out… like that." Feeling Rhapsody, and then Obelisk really _could've been _a fluke. It had only happened twice so far. It felt nothing like my old powers. Nothing at all. I hadn't controlled it consciously either.

Slowly my dad pulled away meeting my eyes. I could no longer be the shy girl I'd been before. Anyone staring at me with eyes like that, I could only meet them. Their challenge made me feel _alive_. Tearstained, they were challenging me. He was about to ask something that I wouldn't want to give.

"Please Taylor. When they come back in full... could you try to not use them? Just try. For me?"

I hesitated. I wanted to complain. My powers had been permanently active whether I'd wanted them to be or not! What he was asking was unfair! Sometimes the bugs reacted to my emotion more than any direction I actively gave them! How could he–? But the pleading in his eyes was stronger than any protest my mind could formulate. I lost this challenge before I could even speak.

"I just want you to be _safe. _Can't you please… try?"

What could I say to that? I nodded.

"Promise me. Promise me you'll try?" He demanded, the feeble words of a parent who only hoped that his child might listen to him.

"I promise." I told him.

I wanted so much to believe I could keep that promise. I would try with everything that I was to keep it, but I knew if I were placed in the same shoes I'd been in at the seminar I wouldn't hesitate to run that promise through the mud. Even so, his smile brightened my world.

"Thank you. After I saw that video I had to talk to you. It couldn't wait. I had to… I just… I'm sorry to bother you. I'm sure you and your friends were doing something before I barged in."

The serious talk was apparently over.

"Nothing too interesting." I said while wiping at my own tear stained eyes. "Chloe was cooking something."

"I could tell. It smelled good. How are they, your friends? Nothing like Emma I hope."

I shook my head. "No. Definitely not. Don't know them all that well yet but they don't seem too bad. We'll see. Chloe really wouldn't mind actually if you wanted to try some food. She loves new people to taste test for her. Want some?" I asked heading towards the door.

"No, I don't want to impose. I need to get back home anyway. I have work in the morning. Drove here right after I got off shift and stopped for food on the way." He said following me back towards the door.

I'd suspected as much. He worked long hours, and most days of the week. Sunday was not a day off for him.

I opened the door, happy to find Chloe at the kitchen stove and Sophia having retaken her spot in the chair, far enough from my door to have given us privacy. _I hoped. _

Neither of them really said anything as my Dad and I stepped into the living room.

"Sorry for intruding." He told Sophia first, and then made eye contact with Chloe in the corner. "I was concerned about Taylor and that video, so I wanted to make sure she was okay." He told them, very formally.

"No problem Mr. Hebert. And its cool if you want some food too!" She offered, enthusiastic as always. I gave an over exaggerated sigh at her. Honestly, the girl came to college to become a doctor when she so clearly exhibited a passion for being a chef. It was maddening. I suppose there wasn't nearly as much prestige in a culinary degree.

"No thank you, Chloe. I appreciate it but I ate on my way over." He paused for a moment walking towards the doorway. I was left standing in my room's entrance.

_He must've felt really awkward about being here. _

"I just thought I'd do my best to embarrass my daughter in front of her friends." All trace of his early anguish had been erased, replaced with an impish smirk.

_Or not. _

Chloe and Sophia laughed a little at that. "Well it's been nice to meet you Chloe and… ah." He looked towards Sophia and gave a questioning pause.

"Sophia Fehrenbacher." She said with a small nod of her head that counted for a bow I suppose. "Just so you know, your daugher has been awesome. Best roommate I've had since coming here, no question."

My dad blinked. _I blinked. _

"Hey! I cook for you!" Chloe shouted, with mock indignance.

"Yeah but it sucks half the time. Taylor embarrassed Mr. Comerford in front of the whole school, and a million others. Parmesan Chicken just doesn't top that!" She said brightly.

Goddammit, that is just not what my dad needed to hear.

He looked at me and beamed though. There was pride in his eyes now. He knew the full story. A year living together, everything had come out eventually. Lung. Meeting the Undersiders. Dinah. The Nine. Leviathan. Coil. Echidna… All the way up to the final fight with Scion. Sometimes I don't think he believed the story but he knew it. Every now and then I caught him giving me a strange look that I didn't quite understand. A sort of wistful smile. I attributed the gap in my knowledge to Khepri, but I was too afraid to ask what it meant. It was the same look he was giving me now. This time though, I understood it.

Pride. But not in the same things I was thinking of. No. I think now, he was just proud that I could make friends again.

"Sophia?" My dad said with a grin that held secrets, his mood having lifted tremendously with my promise. "You don't know a quarter of it."

I blushed furiously as he met my eyes again, that same pride gleaming there.

"Well, again, it was nice to meet you girls but I'd better be going. I'll leave you to it."

Dad had gained some confidence, recently. He really was just trying to embarrass me. Then again he could be putting on a strong face for my friends. It could be either. Maybe both. I stewed, irritated that I hadn't known what to say. Danny Hebert could get around my stone cold attitude more easily than Jack Slash himself.

I loved my Dad. It was a weakness I was willing to live with.

Fifteen minutes later, Dad was gone and I was digging into some delicious potatoes after profusely thanking Chloe for making them. They were a definite win.

"So sorry about my Dad. He worries sometimes, and I guess I don't really make it easy on him," I said conversationally.

"Understandable," Chloe said thoughtfully. Weird. I detected a small bit of a stutter in her voice. "You know your video showed up on TV today."

"It did?" I asked, honestly surprised. It was a big deal I knew but not _that_ big. News crews were probably focusing on Vigilant anyway. I'd freaked out about it already, but no one from the government had shown up my door, and it seemed Weaver and Skitter were both in the clear. If an Earth Bet refugee had known me, either they were keeping quiet or I wasn't under any scrutiny.

_Or they're waiting for the perfect time to blackmail me. _

"Mmmhmm," Chloe said plopping down on the couch next to me with her own plate of loaded mashed potatoes.

"Weird." I said, trying to sound uncaring. "I didn't think Vigilant was that hot a topic."

The two of them stared at me like I was an idiot. My eye twitched, but I blushed a little. Maybe I was a bit of an idiot.

"Erm… yeah… Vigilant is… not really what they focused on,"

_Dammit._

"So speeches like last Thursday… Are they the norm with you?" Sophia asked, her eyes focused on me questioningly.

I paused. Memories filled me one by one with a sort of tunnel vision. The bank robbery and my role there. Boldly claiming my territory in Brockton Bay in front of a crowd. My short words to Mannequin before I'd cut his head off and then again when I later turned his body into a crushed and sticky mess. The cafeteria and being outed in front of everyone. "You can call me Weaver." Ignoring the prompter for most of that speech. Battling words with Jack Slash for Nilbog's loyalty. Marquis. Teacher. Lung. Talking Bonesaw and Panacea into experimental brain surgery...

"...No." I said very, very slowly so as not to betray the word for the horrible horrible lie it was.

Sophia fidgeted, noting her posture. Strange… she seemed. A bit uptight?

"I hope not." I continued, recovering a bit of normality. I was afraid I might've paused for just a hair too long before answering. "I'm just… passionate about a few weird topics is all, capes in particular." I said, trying to turn the situation into something more commonplace. A pet peeve maybe. I was alright with them thinking cape rights was a hotspot for me.

"I like that word." Chloe said, her tone still just a tad shy of normal. Was something on my face? I could swear I saw the two of them exchange a look. "Capes. Its… clever. Avoids hero or villain. Just a person with powers. Vigilant didn't really strike me as a hero or a villain. Well. Not anymore definitely. Not after he let us die and all." She was trying to joke but it fell flat.

"People are people." I said, feeling a little bit stupid. "Were all a little bit of both. It depends on the situation. At that bank, when the cards were down, I thought Vigilant was a hero. Then again, I bet Obelisk doesn't think of herself as a villain."

"Are you kidding? She robbed a bank! That's like, Villain 101!"

"And next she uses the money she got from the bank to build a super-evil underground lair!" Sophia continued Chloe's joke and stood up waving her hands wildly for emphasis.

"Mmhmm!" Chloe nodded sagely. "Filled with "_Obelisks." _All shapes and sizes."

I snorted, and Sophia joined me, the crude joke eliciting horrible humor. These two were pretty fun when it got down to it.

"But come on, think about it." I said, trying to play devil's advocate. "Maybe she wanted to feed a starving kid, or was behind on her college loans."

"Oh I'd rob a bank for that." Chloe posed with complete and total honesty.

"Yeah, except she _murdered _a dude. Teacher here actually." Sophia countered sharply.

I shrugged. "Maybe she thought that guy was a villain and needed to be killed."

I didn't personally believe it. She'd been almost ready to hurt those teachers at the seminar just for talking, and she'd sure as hell been trying to threaten _me_. But who could say? She'd been pretty adamant that she'd done something right. Her face in the video, smiling as she killed him was clear enough.

Either way she was a horrible villain. If she'd really wanted to kill the professor, she could've done it from his class without even looking at him, assuming her powers didn't require eye contact or something. No one would be the wiser. If her plan had been to disguise a murder attempt as a robbery then she was a poor planner indeed.

_Well if you're gonna kill someone, might as well steal a bit while you're at it._

"Oh yeah, Professor Coals was a villain. Right. Teacher by day, mad scientist by night." Sophia barked sarcastically, and folded her arms under her chest, offended. Had she known the guy who'd been killed?

"Oh, you didn't know him did you?" Chloe asked, shocked and worried she'd offended Sophia, her words mirroring my thoughts.

"Sort of. Talked to him a few times after class about some trouble I was having in Chem One. I'd have had him next year, and he seemed like a pretty cool guy." Sophia admitted, coming down off her slight anger.

I thought of Mr. Gladly, and suddenly felt a hair less bad about Professor Coals death. And a little guilty about it, but not too much. The world could do with a few less _pretty cool guys_ as far as I was concerned.

"Who knows?" I said. "Maybe he was a real dirtbag behind the scenes? Making the pretty girls sleep with him or fail his class? Something like that. You don't have to have powers to be a villain." I said.

"Mmm. Wise, Zen Master Taylor." Chloe joked.

I smacked her playfully with a throw pillow, but not too hard. She had a plate in her lap after all.

"I don't think so though. I mean, that sort of stuff doesn't really happen," Sophia said.

I shook my head and could help a small huff. So naive. People were disgusting. I'd seen proof of that. Emma. Sophia. Mr. Gladly. The Merchants. E88. All the way up to Alexandria. Being nice and having a degree was just a fine cloak to cover up the debris.

Maybe I was being too pessimistic. If I was though, that meant Obelisk was just a murderous bitch.

A downer either way, though I'd prefer Obelisk be in the right. She was _still _alive. Still able to be a threat.

I felt good about this conversation even so. Real talking, connecting with normal people about… sort of normal topics. I wasn't intimidating them! I was just talking to them! They seemed to be getting more comfortable around me by the minute, forgetting "_Cripple for Capes! _Taylor" and remembering that I was just a regular girl. Whatever it was that had set them on edge at the beginning of our conversation seemed to have faded to the back of their minds.

We continued talk for another hour or so before it became too late. We all had classes in the morning, though mine were admittedly earlier than theirs and they poked fun at me for it.

I wasn't jealous, as I'd have been up to run anyway, but there was a little sting of thought: Maybe next semester I should schedule my classes a little later. So I could sleep in if I wanted to.

Somehow, my plans to let them know about being a refugee from Bet never came up. I was glad.

What followed were some of the best weeks of my entire life. We did everything together. I could hardly recall a time I felt so… accepted. Well. There was a brief few months that had been really hard to top just after I joined the Undersiders. But these few weeks that followed my conversation with my Dad came real close.

The hype about me died down. People slowly forgot and soon the missing arm became something of a school-wide joke.

Katie Dillen _did_ facebook me, and was very insistent that I join her Speech club. I was in tryouts, and I'd gone out with the group twice already.

Professor Butler's exaggerated kindness began to grow as my grades continued to increase in his course in tandem with the approaching date of the tenure meeting. His hearing was drawing close and I could see the stress building from the bags under his eyes drooping a little more each day. He didn't seem to be a bad man. I doubted any of them were. Good people who'd been trying to strike out after losing a friend, no matter that they'd chosen the wrong target. They'd been trying to _do something _in their own way.

It didn't excuse his bribery though. When I purposefully flubbed a quiz and still managed to rock a B+ I confronted him about it. Intimidated, and fearful that I'd pull back my slim agreement to speak at his hearing, the man promptly regraded the test and apologized. The large D on my new paper pinged me only a tad. Maybe I should've kept him trying to bribe me. I wasn't the type to turn down something useful if I could avoid it.

Ugh. No. _Damn morals._

Chloe and Sophia stuck to my side like glue and if someone ever brought up my speech or tried to question me on it, I found myself defended by iron eyes and closed windows on all sides. The girls kept the questions at bay as my Youtube's views continued to climb along with my notoriety, they were a shield for me. They let me be normal.

I even flirted a little.

A very little. But it was there. Reid, Tanner's friend, was worth paying attention to, and that boy who kept smiling at me was named Anton. He was a Russian exchange student with a small but growing understanding of English.

As usual, I kept my distance, trying my best to keep Sophia and Chloe from worming their way into my heart. They were a tenacious sort, but occasionally, I caught little whispers about something when they thought I wasn't listening. Chatting and then shutting up the minute I came into view but I never figured out the secret they were keeping from me. It wasn't just them though. Once or twice, I caught almost everyone I knew doing the same thing. Talking behind my back.

Even weirder, throughout the whole time, I couldn't help the small inkling that I was being _watched._ Weirdly, not only was I unconcerned, it actually comforted me a little. Someone was keeping an eye on me and I didn't think it was only so they could put a knife in my back.

...Or an obelisk between my legs. Whatever. Maybe Devin Maxworth was trying to defend me where I'd defended him? Watching was sort of his thing after all.

I'd tried to find the girl who'd broken into tears at the seminar as well, but she was nowhere to be found. Theresa Fairchild was her name. I knew she'd been a college student but the few people I'd found who knew her said she'd been skipping classes. Not eating. Hardly sleeping, and had been missing at odd times of the night. Or day for that matter.

That didn't bode well. But it was hard to apologize to a girl you just couldn't fucking _find._

Times like those I wished I had my bugs again. They had given me a sort of quasi omniscience. A feeling like I could know everything. Secrets like these would've been impossible for anyone to keep around Skitter.

That's when the news came out with a _new_ story that brought the questions down on me harder than ever. Hardest of all because they _only_ came from my shield, who I had more reason to trust than ever.

"You can see the future, can't you!?" Chloe asked, her tone accusatory. "You lied! You totally have a power and you lied to us!"

I blinked. Where the hell had this come from?

"Uhh, what?" I asked, perplexed.

Sophia, looking skeptical but still a little angry, shoved a newspaper under my nose.

"_Late Professor Outed as Rapist!" _Then in much smaller print, but still a title it read: "_Blackmailed students with failing grades! Victims Speak Up!" _

My eyes skimmed the page caching key phrases like 'more than 30 suspected victims...' and 'Professor Coals might've been doing this for years before Obelisk...' and 'didn't feel safe to come out. Who would believe…?'

_You've got to be fucking kidding me._

I let myself sink against the wall of the rec-center where we had come to run together and laughed at the complete and total bullshit this was. Now my friends thought I was a precog because I'd taken a shot in the dark!

Hah. They couldn't be further from the truth but even _I _had to admit that they hadn't jumped far to reach this conclusion.

It didn't matter, and was fortunate really. Maybe Obelisk really _wasn't_ a psychopath. It seemed she'd gotten her proof. She was like me in a way. Doing the wrong thing for the right reason. The world just got a little bit brighter. Either way, I had a pickle to get myself out of now, and some friends who were so damn convinced I was a superhero that I knew I'd spend weeks trying to stop them from buying lottery tickets with my guesses on them.

* * *

><p>"Hey Taylor, wanna come study with us at the library?"<p>

_Well, alright. I do have a lot of work to get done. _

"Taylor, forget your run today! We're going this afternoon to the gym. Wanna come?"

_I… guess I could. Its a little cold out today anyway. _

"Wanna come to the movies with us? You can sit by _Ree~eeid!_"

_Okay, I could do with a little less mocking, but I did want to see that flick. _

"Were going to the comedy club down on 13th! The have open mic night tonight. Wanna go?"

_Y-yeah. Yeah I do! _

"Wanna come with us to New York this weekend? A group of about six of us are headed up there and the van has space for one more!"

_Seems legit._

In retrospect, I really should've seen this coming. But it had become so normal to hear them ask me to go places that I'd been utterly blindsided when the giant red cross of Clinic's place of business came into view.

"I can't believe you conned me into this!" I screamed. Indignance, anger, and maybe a little bit of resentment all mingled together with this unbearable fondness that I couldn't manage to quell no matter how hard I tried.

"We _asked you _to come with us to _New York_. You can't honestly expect us to believe you didn't see this coming!" Sophia turned back from the shotgun seat of the van to send me a winning grin.

"Well… I… Well…!" I huffed in mock anger, surprisingly blanking on any viable retort to that. My taxed mind found purchase soon enough, but far too late to seem clever, or like I wasn't surprised. "But she charges! She charges for her healing! Out the ass! You can't expect me to be able to afford her prices to regrow an _arm!" _

I remember finding that a clever alternative to what had happened to Panacea when I had discovered that no, Clinic's healing was definitely _not_ free of charge. The woman's prices were exorbitant in some respects but I'd rather her charge those fees and continue healing than become jaded like Amy had been.

"Aw come on, Taylor. Being the one armed girl is pretty cool introduction material but even you have to admit its stupid to not even try. Especially when Clinic's clinic is only two hours away." Said Tanner. He was now Chloe's… friend. I was hesitant to call him a boyfriend. They danced around the subject everywhere except for the bedroom where they spent a lot less time dancing and a lot more time keeping me up at night through the thin walls.

I scoffed but no one heard it. Chloe was too busy laughing at "Clinic's clinic." She was easily amused, at least by the boy she liked.

This red glow had settled about my face in light of their duplicity. My friends. _My friends_. They'd plotted behind my back and told me they were going to New York to shop. They invited me along just like they had many times. Made it seem just like a normal trip. Of course I'd suspected they'd try something; part of me still wary of attack from my days at Winslow had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'd never expected what they were talking about behind my back would be a _good_ surprise.

My arm… I really did miss having a functional one. Now we were parked a hundred feet from Clinic. A hundred feet from the cape with the power to restore me. And they'd done this for me. No provocation. No questions asked. They still couldn't afford her prices. I _know_. I'd looked them up more than once. Regrowing an arm was something no one else could do, so the woman was able to charge unreal sums of money for procedures like that, but she set her own prices on a case by case basis. But never for free. I had a few more than two hundred dollars on me. _I… doubted _that would be enough.

"This is… really nice you guys but there's no way she's just going to heal me for free. I've…" I paused feeling a little guilty. It was as if I was admitting to a huge secret. "I've looked up her prices. She charges an arm and a leg to replace an arm." I deadpanned, sort of somberly. It had been a kind gesture but not one that I could ever feasibly afford.

Chloe, Michael Bels one of Tanner's nerdier friends, and Reid all laughed at my horrible joke.

Katie, my newest friend from the speech club was a bit harder to draw a laugh from. She didn't know me as well as the other two girls but we got along pretty well and they'd invited her along even before me. At first I'd thought that was a little weird but now I knew why.

Chloe offered me a hand out of the car while I tried feebly to both remain indignant and stop the gushing thanks from dripping into my voice.

They steadfastly ignored my protest and as one, seemed to take off towards the building, leaving me behind with Chloe.

"Aren't you guys listening! I can't afford this!"

Chloe rolled her eyes and shook her hand at me menacingly. "Just get outta the car Taylor! You're coming in! She's already expecting you."

I sighed, doubting that severely.

"You guys didn't have to do this." I said, trying not to sound as grateful as I felt. I didn't like being indebted to people.

"Hey, what are friends for?" Chloe told me. She had that expectant grin that might be found on a patient parent coaxing an unruly child to brush their teeth.

I took only a moment more to stare at her outstretched hand. The three of them, Chloe Tanner and Sophia, were grinning at me. I'd only known them for a month and change now but they really seemed to like me. Despite my avoidance of cape topics. My tendency to spend hours reading books instead of doing the more normal things. My refusal to drink alcohol until my next birthday. They'd accepted those things easily rather than scorn them.

They… thought of me as a friend. Even after we'd spent the last two months hanging out together, going to movies, making fun of Chloe for her nightly activities, it only just now sunk in that there wasn't going to be a _backlash_. No devastating prank to take it all away from me.

I hadn't felt that warmth in my heart since the Undersiders had allowed me to stay at their loft. Peace. This…? These friends? This normal life. It was what I'd been fighting so hard for all this time.

I wiped at a red eye as I took her hand and hopped out of the SUV, into the cold air of early October.

The moment my feet hit the ground a much bigger problem reared its head. They'd had only the best of intentions, of course. How could they know that they were leading me into Bonesaw's laboratory?

I cringed staring at the large building with the red cross burning in the sunlight near the roof. I knew it wasn't Bonesaw. _It wasn't her, or even a version of her. _The woman just _looked_ so damn much like her that I had trouble separating the two.

It wasn't so much the fact that she looked like Bonesaw either. The last time a healer had… _edited me_… I'd become capable of enslaving an entire army, and lost my mind while doing it. I felt my nervousness was understandable. Panacea wasn't Clinic though, and this woman wouldn't be touching my mind.

As far as I knew.

None of these thoughts mattered. They'd brought me here and on some subconscious level I'd known what they were trying to do whether I wanted to believe it or not. I could've stopped it. Could've stayed at home, but I'd chosen to come. I'd allowed their subterfuge on the hope that they really did care about me. I'd cast out my line and caught the best bite a fisher of friends could hope for. Now I had to live with the consequences...

...I'd have to let the scary bone tinker grow me a new limb. How horrible.

Dammit why did I keep thinking that this was going anywhere anyway? There was no way we could afford Clinic's prices! They'd turn me away at the door!

"Come on Taylor. You look like you're walking into a funeral! Its not like you can leave here any worse off than you came!" Tanner joked.

I couldn't help the bitter huff that left my mouth at that. I'd known hundreds of capes. Capes that burned, created suns, could see different futures, and could punch through buildings. My back had been broken by a thirty foot tall water demon. My arm had been severed by a girl with tentacles. Minor nuisances. _Healers_ left the deepest scars.

I remembered my conviction to stay as far away from the Wardens as possible. That too was faltering. I was in the spotlight already. If they wanted words with me they would have them and god help me if they had a mind-reader.

I didn't know what to expect from the clinic but what I got wasn't it. We walked inside and almost instantly I began to feel an easing in my gut. Tiredness washed away and the small headache that came from being stuffed in a car for hours literally melted off in moments. I could tell that the others felt the same by the sighs of relief that echoed my own.

Several people were milling about a large entry room just waiting around. I had a feeling they were mooching off the _high_ Clinic's power seemed to produce as they looked healthy otherwise, but poor. Maybe even homeless.

A stark interior that mimicked a hospital office except there were no posters or decorations whatsoever. Hardly what I would expect from a woman who could make thirty grand in ten minutes doing something no one else in the world was capable of.

A single black haired teller dressed in very rich clothing sat behind a large but plain counter. She was surrounded by three customers. Unlike those lingering in the entrance, these men were well dressed and trimmed. They turned away from the counter just as we approached, and I was almost certain the shortest one sneered at the teller before smashing his palm on the exit door. His two companions followed him out stoically, not meeting any of our eyes.

"Wonder what that was about?" I pondered aloud. Before any of my friends could answer me the teller did.

"Oh I was just letting them know that Clinic doesn't take well to threats. She has instructed me to inform anyone that she will heal when she wants. _Who she wants_ and for whatever price she deems appropriate," the teller said with a vaguely vacant smile.

"Oh. Uhm. We're not here to threaten Clinic at all!" I said, feeling a bit stupid.

"Wonderful! Do you have a reservation?"

"N–," I started.

"We do! Taylor Hebert." Reid said with a nod towards me.

"We do?" I voiced.

Chloe grinned at me. "We do."

My lower lip quivered. H-Holy… shit! The prices Clinic sometimes charged for regrowing limbs was more than my dad's house!

_Either of them. Bet or Dalet._

"Y-You… You guys paid for…?"

"Not just us skinny. There was… a bit of a fundraiser. We started the idea small. Thought maybe we could get you started saving for it but it kinda snowballed and over half the school donated. Some other people made really big donations too. Keeping it a secret from you has been _hell_ you know." Sophia offered nonchalantly as if thirty to fifty _thousand_ dollars wasn't much of a big deal. "You're a snoopy one."

I didn't even register her annoying nickname for me.

_What the fuck!? _

"It was our idea though," the girl tagged that on as an afterthought.

My lips were dry. My face was numb. I thought this might be the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me in my entire life.

_What the fuck!?_

_Where were you wonderful people when I was lost and broken? When I had no one to turn to, no one to save me? When I had learned beyond doubt that I could only depend on myself? _

I schooled my features, while inside I was turning into mush and putty. I did my best to hide, but I was afraid I was quivering. Oh god...

"Ah, here we are."

My eyes shot back to the teller like she was a lifeline. My image was breaking into a thousand pieces and I couldn't stop it. Fuck. It was the exact opposite of Emma bringing up my admission of crying for a whole week, but it had the exact same effect.

"Taylor Hebert. Oh, you're missing an arm? Huh, I could hardly tell!" The teller's vapid tone was a ruse. _It had to be._ How could she be meeting my red eyes and not pity me in the slightest bit? I must look so damn pathetic. Fuck, I was better than this.

"If you'll follow me, Clinic will be with you shortly."

I was embarrassed beyond reason or reckoning. I'd had more money and tossed more out for less reason when I'd been Skitter. Is this how I'd made people feel? This singing sting in my chest? Fuck, no wonder they'd stood up for me at Arcadia! Right now I would murder for these people.

"Y-You guys..." I rasped, quietly awed by what they'd done, steadfastly avoiding meeting any of their eyes. I felt inexplicably guilty in their presence. Here I'd been suspecting them of plotting a prank behind my back when the... when It had been...?

Fuck all the shit I'd gone through and it was the _good feelings_ that turned me into a mess. This sort of gratitude wasn't what so unfamiliar, so fucking _warm,_ that I bubbled with it.

"Hey…" Chloe said softly and I felt her drop an arm on my shoulder. Could she see this? Could she tell that _this _was making me fall to pieces? _This unbearable kindness._ "Its okay. Everyone wanted to do it, you know? You don't have to say anything. We know you don't like the touchy feely stuff."

Katie bounced on one foot looking a little embarrassed herself. She didn't know the others very well yet but I was glad they'd invited her along. She'd sat next to that Michael kid. He was a quiet type. Odd that he'd be such a close friend with loudmouths like Tanner and Reid.

I licked my lips and forced myself to meet Chloe's eyes. "Th-thanks." I nearly whispered, hoping it conveyed an ounce of what I felt. Guilty again. I could give them so much more than that...

I turned trying to ease my shaking by holding onto the counter all the way around and followed the teller behind the counter to a door that opened automatically after a few inputs from the woman.

"Good luck!"

As I walked through the doorway behind the woman I heard Sophia murmur, "Damn I'm glad you know how to talk to her. She was really freaking ou–!" Before the closing of the automatic door cut her off.

Dammit couldn't they see what they were doing to me? I wasn't! I was… I was normal. Completely normal. I didn't have to hold that image anymore, but damn did that habit die hard. I'd try and make them understand how much this meant to me on the way back. I would. _I had to. _

The woman took me down a long hallway past a series of small offices to a big one at the far end of the room and walked in.

Then, to my surprise, she pulled a black haired wig off, letting a scraggly mess of blonde curls fall free.

"God that's better!" The girl spoke, her voice suddenly entirely different.

"Uh… Clinic?" I asked, unsure.

"Oh, yes! I'm Clinic. Sometimes I run the teller to help the weak ones out front. They're nice people really but they're beyond my ability to cure. Sort of on death row those. Genetic diseases are a bit of a problem for me, as well as being retarded. Can't fix things people are born with usually, but those ones out front have nowhere else to go. They tell me they feel _clear_ around me, so I let them hang around and sit out front for them when I'm not too busy healing the Wardens or clients. Oh! I'm babbling."

She was. She was extremely long winded too. But that was alright.

"I… think thats kind of nice of you. I don't know if I'd be patient enough if I had your powers," I said with a sort of calmness derived from masking every emotion I had. I was still trying to calm myself down from the waves of … of… _love_ pouring out of me towards those friends I'd left in the waiting room.

Fuck I just wanted to go back out and hug them all. When had I become such a sap?

"You said '_your' _powers. Implying you've got ones of your own?"

I scowled annoyed. That calmed me down easier than any mental exercises could. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

"Oh come now!" She said, her voice a high lilting sort that might be found in an 1800s era play. "Guessing what powers "Taylor Hebert" might have, has been all the rage lately. You're quite popular for what you said here in New York. Several of the Wardens have wanted to thank you personally."

I flushed. "I didn't do anything."

"No? You didn't single handedly curb the start of a full anti-hero riot? Ah. It must be some other girl who got their school to send me upwards of forty grand in order to fix their missing arm. Well, there's the door. I'll wait for the other girl. I was so hoping she'd show up today."

I bristled. The woman had a very… uppity attitude. I don't know. She had a regal bearing that annoyed me. Her sarcasm had been meant encourage me but I only found myself irritated.

"I… didn't do anything someone else wouldn't have done." I amended.

"But you did it." She said with finality. "_You did. _It really made a lot of us feel good about ourselves and what we were trying to do. Honestly, if you'd have stepped in here the next day I'd have healed you on the spot. Still would. Will in fact. The money your school donated has already been re-donated to people like those ones out front. I couldn't in good conscience accept money for what I would've given freely."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Why? I just didn't do all that much!"

She smirked at me, exasperated and amused. "You really do spin a wonderful tale. Humble too. I like you. Tell me, want any cosmetic surgery while I am at it? Different color eyes? Hair? Shorter? Taller? Bigger bust? Its on the house. The girl who gives an entire nation of capes a reason to be a hero and she doesn't even realize it." The last bit the woman said almost to herself as she sat down in a stool and spun around, propping one foot up on her knee.

Not Bonesaw in the slightest.

"Uh… n-no. Just. Just the arm please. I couldn't… accept anything more," she had me flustered.

_Bigger bust size?_

_No._

_But mayb–!_

_No!_

"Alright, well here's how this works. My healing hits everyone near me but I can direct it to affect specific people within my range. Smaller the building I'm in, the better I can direct it. If I'm outside I can't do that at all. For stuff like regrowing skin, veins, fingers, limbs, anything really, I'll need to touch you directly. You're going to burn a _lot_ of energy regrowing it and the rest of the material for your arm comes from… well… bodies donated post mortem. And you'll have to touch them. Yeah. It kinda grosses me out a bit too."

Surprisingly I was okay with that. About the same as feeding my bugs to Panacea for protein really.

"Also…. its gonna hurt. A lot. Can you take pain and make sure you hold on both to me and to the cadaver? If not you'll need to be knocked out." She said, in probably the most unprofessional tone I'd ever heard.

This was all very casual.

"Aren't there, like, forms I need to sign? Something like that?" I asked. I wasn't exactly trying to stall but I didn't really _like_ pain.

"I'm not a doctor. I don't do things by the book, and if you plan to sue me, I assure you, you will lose. Cuts out a whole lot of paperwork and keeps me able to heal as much as I wish." She said without pausing once for breath. "I don't have a hippocratic oath either. If I find out you had HIV, I'm not gonna keep that a secret. Its why I only heal by reservation or my own whim now. People don't like their secrets spilling out. You got any you need to hide? I actually might keep your secrets."

I gulped. Then nodded and backed away.

"Oh come on. I swear I won't tell anyone anything I find. Alright? _You_ girl, deserve what I can give. If anyone does." Clinic told me, and for some weird reason I trusted her.

That wasn't nearly enough. I didn't budge an inch.

She twisted on the stool and hit a few buttons. To my disgust, a tank in the corner of the room rotated to reveal a glass side and a dead woman floating in the water within. There was a small panel that could be detached with rubber lining. I assumed that was where I'd be putting my hand.

"Now please, Taylor. I need to find out the extent of your injuries. My power focuses on your entire body at once. It won't start healing old wounds until everything else is fixed, unfortunately. Here, just have a seat and grab my hand, and we'll get you a new arm. Okay?"

My secrets… Oh god this was so monumentally stupid, but how could I go out there now and tell them that their work had been in vain? Their efforts to help me, just because they had wanted to, I would be turning down for some inexplicable reason?

They'd hate me. They'd…

I couldn't accept that. Not again.

Damn the consequences.

I sat down on the stool next to the tank and Clinic, and offered my hand. She moved to take it.

She touched my hand, and she instantly jerked rigid. Her eyes were wide, breathing labored as if she'd just run a marathon. Slowly, though she relaxed. I found her hand coming to rest around my shoulders. She was… hugging me?

"Are you okay…?" I asked trying not to startle her as she clutched the wall, and me, for support. "Was… that normal?"

"N-Normal." She scoffed. "_You poor girl…"_

I didn't really like the sound of that.

"Mental trauma. Shrapnel… from some type of bomb I don't recognize. Blunt impact damage or bruising on nearly every bone and muscle."

I cringed. She probably meant Bakuda and Lung.

"Back broken, spinal injury, fixed by another healer probably _better_ than me. Mental Trauma." She continued.

_Leviathan. Panacea. Armsmaster outing me._

"Skull sawed open across the forehead? _More mental trauma," _Clinic's words were growing louder now.

_Oh right, I'd forgotten about that. Always too focused on seeing Grue's entrails all over that kitchen..._

"Piercing wounds, one horrible one in your shoulder. Not healed. Just… vanished but it left an impression."

_Hadn't Shadowstalker hit me with something once? Or maybe that was Mannequin. No… Foil? Fuck._

Some of these injuries weren't coming to mind.

"_You've been _blinded_, and also healed_ of _that!" _The woman bellowed, her tone now growing angry.

_Noelle and Scapegoat. I remember that._

"My power is telling me you were… were… torn in half. Your legs were r-ripped off! You're…! No. No I refuse to believe that's real. Somehow by god there's _no_ mental trauma from that!"

I hadn't been worried then. I was dead. No reason to worry when you're sure you're going to die. That I didn't was merely a bit of luck.

Clinic's lower lip was quivering. Well, so much for that regal bearing.

"And a little over a year ago you went fully insane due to… _something_ fucking with your brain. Yet here you stand, hardly even noticeably different from your peers at first glance. All this, and you're here…" She paused twitching, almost shivering. "...to get your arm healed. Which you stuck in a _fire_ to cauterize."

I blushed a little. "Hey I lived!"

"And let's not forget the goddamn bullet wounds in your _head! _Taylor Hebert… what… _are you?_ I've seen veterans that would scream like little girls at your injuries! I've never seen… I can't even…!" She let me go, her eyes filled with pity that they hadn't held before. This was easy though. Old injuries that didn't hurt anymore? Old pains, long recovered? I took these memories in stride. It was the good things from unexpected sources that fucked me up.

Well. This was awkward.

"I… I'm from Earth Bet." I admitted. She didn't look surprised. Not even momentarily, but she did let loose a strangled cry. "Did a lot of fighting there. Got hit by a bomb early on. I think it upped my threshold for pain a little."

"You can say that again!" She barked. "Who the hell are your parents? Who let this happen to you!? This is…! You're twenty! _Twenty!" _

Yep. Real awkward.

"Would, it be okay if you didn't ask that? Its over now, and its nothing my Dad could've prevented anyway. He did his best, but its over now," I repeated. "I've made some good friends. I'd like to put that world behind me."

_The best of friends. I'd love these people forever. _

Emma came to mind and I cringed.

_I hope..._

Clinic still seemed a bit shaken. Outraged? She wasn't scared, and whatever panic she'd felt was devolving into a sort of bloodthirsty rage at whoever had allowed these injuries to befall me. But slowly she came out of it. She nodded, gathering her composure.

I smiled and walked to the tank to get my arm healed.

* * *

><p>I was doing a handstand against one of the few open spots of wall in my apartment's living room, grinning like a hyena. I had a right hand. I hadn't known how much I'd missed it.<p>

"Woohoo!" Sophia cheered as I wallered my way down the wall, and climbed back to my feet. With both hands.

Clinic hadn't been lying. It had hurt like hell, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. And the pay off was…

_Whoa. _

Old aches and pains that had plagued me so long I'd forgotten them had vanished. My back felt straighter, my shoulders lighter, my neck didn't pop anymore when I turned it, which it had done since I'd been in middle school. My joints seemed fresh and new. _Everything_ felt fresh and new.

Something in my mind had eased as well. Like the weight of Skitter, Weaver, and Khepri had just drained away. She'd done something about my mental trauma but it hadn't fucked me up like Panacea had.

I felt like I was walking on air. A high that I wasn't sure I'd ever fall from.

"Oh god, Taylor there's a _huge_ cockroach right behind you!"

I knew. I felt it.

Joy slowly faded to horror.

My high came tumbling down.

Skitter was back.

* * *

><p><strong>End Chapter<strong>


	5. Interlude – Hero

**Author's Notes: **Just so you're all aware, these chapters and several more are available on Spacebattles. I'm posting the final versions, mostly so I can have an accurate wordcount honestly, here but I've been primarily writing this story over there. The story is actually all the way up to Chapter 10 over there. I'd link it but as you all know, does not get along well with links. Googling Copacetic and my penname will definitely get you there though if you're interested enough to read on.

Enjoy!

**Chapter Five: Interlude – Hero**

"AAAgghhh!" I screamed, jerking up in my bed. Sweat poured down my forehead and soaked the sheets beneath me.

I panted, staring at the room around me in relief. My bedroom. My dorm room. Thank god.

"Just a dream, just a dream, just another fucking dream!" I breathed, trying to make myself believe it and failing.

"Christ Theresa, again? It's been three nights!" My roommate whined, and I cringed, feeling a small spike of guilt that did nothing to ease the all consuming fear of failure that had haunted me since that day.

The damn seminar. How I wish I'd never gone.

"_You." She _had pointed a finger at me, her eyes burning with a sort of passion that I didn't understand. I'd been excited. Why? I liked attention? I wanted to end the taunts the professors were sending at Vigilant? I'd been happy to be picked, if a bit frightened. So naive. I shuddered.

I met Marietta's eyes and for a brief moment she looked normal. Normal. Then her skin began to shrivel and shrink. Wrinkles appeared under her eyes. Her hair had faded to gray then white then nothing at all. In moments I was looking at the tired eyes of a ninety year old woman staring at me as if… as if…

As if I'd woken her in the middle of the night, annoyed. Teenage, again. Another figment of my damn imagination.

"I know, I'm sorry. It's just not going away," I murmured tiredly, wiping my eyes, and hoping today the visions of my imagined failure might cease.

_I'm so fucked up..._

I rose, ignoring Marietta's grumbling. We shared a room the two of us and if I was getting up it made it difficult for her to continue to sleep. She didn't like me very much anymore… Not after I'd failed her.

In an effort to appease the girl, I ran my ethernet cable out into the main room bringing my laptop with me to sit on one of the chairs. I dragged a blanket out there too, as the tile floor was chilly and I only had light pajamas. I wouldn't be getting anymore sleep anyway.

I opened the laptop and blinked several times at the neon blue light burned my tired retinas. Once I'd finally blinked enough to be able to read the screen, I looked at the time shining in the lower right corner. Four A.M. Shit, no wonder Marietta was pissed.

I ran a search. My video, or rather Taylor's and my video, for it could belong to no one but the two of us, had a ridiculous view count. Reading even the first few comments that mentioned me had me near to tears again.

_How dare they call me fake! They didn't know. They hadn't felt her eyes burning into them. They hadn't seen the cross she'd borne, the pain she'd suffered, and the fire that remained where her soul should be..._

They'd be crying too if they'd had to meet her eyes and hear her words, like weights being tossed onto my shoulders. Weights handed down to me, crafted of misery. I felt like she was unloading just an ounce of her own to ease her burden, but enough to crush me like a twig.

Fuck who was I kidding? _My video? _Pfft. I was a two-bit actor in a play that girl had conducted from thin air and a light breeze. She'd trampled over the professors like they were children. She used me as a prop and then beat me over the heads of those old men and women until I broke. It had done the trick. I'd felt more than a little pity for Vigilant when I realized what they were trying to do to him but did I have to be broken for Taylor's point to be made?

Taylor… so plain a name for such a person. She terrified me, on a level that I wasn't sure I could compare to anything else.

What had I cared about only a few days ago? My music? Stale and broken now. My keyboard in the living area had gone untouched ever since the seminar, collecting dust now, nevermind that I was an honors musician! How could I give a flying fuck about music when I was going to get everyone killed.

_It wasn't real Theresa! It wasn't real!_

"_Okay. Now you're a hero,"_ she told me. Simple as that. I was a hero. I had responsibility now. The first weight draped over my shoulders. A cloak, heavy with a burden that I was still unfamiliar with, even after all these nights.

_It feels so real now._

Telling myself how it had only been words did nothing to ease my fear. My terror. Powers. I'd wanted them so badly once, just like everyone else. When they started cropping up over the past year or so, they'd become a craze. Scion was gone, and the fear was easing up. A whole world with powers existed and now it was our turn to join.

Now I knew the truth. A nightmare world. A devil world. _Earth Bet._

_How can I protect them? How can I make sure that story _never_ comes true? How how how!?_

Fuck. I shook my head to clear it. I had to do something… I was going crazy. My nightmares were bad and how I saw people in daylight was no better.

What was happening to me?

"_...kill your team if you fuck up, even once…"_

I turned back to my computer. There was respite in the internet. There I could hunt. I could find information that I desperately needed.

I researched everything. I learned every scrap of information I could about Earth Bet, piecing together knowledge that seemed so sensationalistic, so god-damned stupid, or so obvious as to be useless. I cross referenced, checked stories of survivors against those who'd been near the portals before they closed. Refugee's who no longer had names going to their governments asking for identity. For credentials. Most had been given that, which wreaked havoc on Hispanic immigration laws.

The Golden morning was the new definition for panic. Deaths.

Seattle, home of the Seahawks, had been the first to be wiped off the map. Sydney, Okinawa, the whole island, New Orleans, _again. _Nashville. Only by then did the government unleash the nukes on him… right in the middle of New York. We'd been blessedly saved when Scion and the nuke both had been plunged into a portal of the Golden Man's own making. True collapse had just about begun when blessedly, the wave of power erupted around all the portals. They had begun appearing from nowhere filled with hundreds of fleeing refugees only hours before, running, running as far into our world as they could. Then the eruption had blown through, killing everything within ten miles of these portals. That on its own probably killed as many people Scion had. A small price to pay to stop him, most thought.

They all agreed on one thing, whether from Aleph, Gimmel, or any other Earth. _Earth Bet_ was where it all began. _Earth Bet_ was where it had ended, and their own reality had been the wall that shielded us from true annihilation.

If there even _was_ an Earth Bet anymore, it was probably a dismal place indeed.

The portals remained open for 37 hours and 12 minutes after the explosion. Corroboration between countries puts those in other nations closing only a few seconds later or earlier. All of them had closed within the same minute.

_I need more than this! This doesn't tell me anything!_

I changed my search. Obelisk. The murderess. She'd killed the teacher and started the whole thing. If not for her there wouldn't have even _been_ a seminar! Not one like that at least. Something those professors with all their learning hadn't understood, it seemed. Or maybe Vigilant had just been the most convenient target.

Obelisk was the catalyst, cascading down to Vigilant's intervention, the professor's death, the seminar, Vigilant's innocent –and failing– defence, and finally _Taylor_.

The villain was a good place to start. How could I fight her? How could I protect people from her? Defense? No her power was too versatile. Give people armor? No, too many. Always another victim. No no no! Too many weaknesses in people! To many places to defend!

I see in my mind obelisks rise from out of the ground impaling the defenseless kids sitting in the grass while I watch in horror.

"_Do you keep fighting them?"_

_I… I…_

My response is exactly the same as it was then. Stuttering stupid, struck dumb by her… _presence._

"_Do you keep fighting them!?" _It was even quieter that time but it felt like a scream to me.

_Yes yes, god yes, anything! Just stop _looking _at me!_

I was such a fucking coward. I felt the next weight drop on me even as the words repeated themselves over and over in my mind.

"_Good. That's good. You're all alive!"_

It seems like something worth celebrating. I have the gratitude of the people. That small audience of two hundred becomes a multitude before my eyes. They love me but…

I turned my eyes down towards the stump of a right arm and gulped reflexively.

Not real. I'm not missing an arm. I don't even have powers. I continued typing, trying to ignore the play that was refreshing itself in my mind. Typing with a hand I can't see but can still feel, watching the keys depress seemingly of their own accord.

I knew I was still dreaming but the insanity was going further than any dreams before. Closer to that dark end where I failed and everyone died than any dreams before it. Here, finally, I found my spine.

_I won't fail. I won't let this dream reach that end Taylor._

The figment in my imagination cocked a sort of sad eyebrow. As if… maybe she knew. Maybe she knew _exactly _what I was going through.

She gestured somewhere else. Somewhere far off and I turned to see nothing. Just my wall.

Taylor gave a knowing smile and nodded once more towards the wall. I saw nothing! What the hell kind of dream was…

A speck. Tiny, almost unmeasurable, but growing in my perception. A small piece extracted melding with…_me_? Merging with me? A small piece of infinity. _I_ _SAW_. A being, bright and gold, the light fading slowly. Another being, similar to the first. Less and more at the same time. I didn't understand. They were both dying. They were…?

_VAST! ENORMOUS!_

I turned back to Taylor, my image of Taylor, but she was gone.

"Theresa!"

"Gah!" I screamed, and awoke. I was in my bed again. Marietta stood over me and the light was on. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was finally over. At least for tonight. The lights were never on in my dreams, and I could find a modicum of safety from the visions as long as I wasn't asleep. The only lights in my dreams come from my laptop when I was madly searching for anything to help me and can't find anything useful. Just more pictures of Blight's victims, or the horrifying images of Alan Coals.

"Hey… you okay?" She asks, this time genuinely concerned, unlike the annoyance of her dream version. This time her face didn't wither. I've actually woken up this time.

"Better now," I tell her. "T-thanks. Thanks for watching out for me."

She'd been a good friend these past few days ever since my nightmares began. Ever since Taylor told me I'd been unable to save all the people sitting in the grass. Marietta had been one of those I hadn't been able to save.

"This isn't getting better Theresa, it's getting worse. You need to talk to somebody. Or confront her about it," she scolded in a mothering tone that I'd seen occasionally from her. We'd been roommates for two years already, both of us going on our third now.

I shuddered and pulled the covers up over my face, partly for dramatic effect, partly for humor, and partly because the idea of just confronting _Taylor Hebert_ was just that scary.

"Oh she's_ not that bad." _I felt a pillow land on my head from under my covers. "I'm telling you. She wrote it off with a joke the next day is what the freshmen are saying. The ones in her math class."

I blinked. "Wait she's a freshman?"

For some reason the idea that the source of my horror these past few nights was over two years my junior irritated me.

Theresa shrugged. "She's in College Algebra, Bio I, all the starter classes really. Heard she's trying to join the speech club."

I let my jaw fall open at that a little and threw the covers off myself. "Are they _insane!?" _

Marietta laughed.

"I'm serious! She's like… like…!"

Honestly it was probably a pretty good idea, in theory. I could see it now though. "Villa Grove University Speech Club Disqualified in Debate for Excessive Use of Anguish."

I scoffed a little, which slowly morphed into a near full laugh joining Marietta. I rubbed at my eyes to wake up a little.

"What time is it?" I asked dismally.

"Almost three in the afternoon," she told me.

I sniffed in a bit of shock. Well. I'd _finally_ gotten some sleep. Almost eight whole hours of nightmares. Thank god. Now I could probably go another two or three days before I had to do it again.

Wasn't _that_ a comforting thought?

"You feeling any better today? Maybe wanna go out somewhere?" Marietta asked gingerly.

I sighed. I hadn't been able to be my usual peppy self since Taylor had twisted my mind and began haunting my dreams. Not that I'd ever been very peppy. My issues with failure were legendary among our dorm, because my venting system was my electric keyboard and writing music. My roommate and those down in the rooms beside ours were pretty non-confrontational but after my nine hour composition marathon when I was made 2nd Piano instead of 1st last year, they'd been begging me to shut up.

Music wasn't going to make this one go away though. Somehow I couldn't even bring myself to want to play. I didn't want to do anything. Food tasted stale to me, friends just made me feel more guilty, and school…

Hah. As if I'd ever enjoyed any of the classes other than the music ones.

"Yeah… I'm gonna head out." I told her. I had to get out of the dorm. She was right about that. The tiny room was stifling and not good for my rapidly deteriorating mental state.

"Oh? We're going to get some Arby's in an hour or two. Want to wait?"

I shoved on a pair of slacks as I shook my head towards her. "Nah I think I'm just gonna go for a walk. I probably won't be gone too long. Just need to clear my head a little."

Marietta shrugged in a 'suit yourself' manner. She was worried about me and more than a little concerned. I could hardly keep down a bit of bread lately, and as a result I was losing weight rapidly. If I could bring myself to care, I might even feel a bit of pride in that. I'd always been a little chubby. Who knew losing that extra fat could be so easy? Just don't feel like eating. At all.

It took a little while to get ready but I didn't put half the effort into it that I normally did. I'd skipped classes Friday and whiled away the days since watching Family Guy or stand-up comedy on my computer, trying to distract myself from the disturbing images that kept cropping up in my mind.

It hadn't worked, and watching Peter Griffin, _a cartoon character,_ deteriorate like one of Blight's victims had promptly soured that pastime.

Four hours later I found myself wandering. I'd walked all the way up 18th, or what passed for the main road in this town. It was a city, I knew but it felt so small compared to New York where I'd grown up.

Students laughed merrily outside the entrance to bars, some being obnoxiously loud. Others walked to restaurants in groups, with the occasional oddball on his or her own, most nose deep in their phones or books.

How could I protect them all from Obelisk? From Blight?

_The tower. You can build it. Defend _everything_. _

I shivered. Where the hell had that thought come from?

I continued on, my feet leading my subconsciously while I swam in my own thoughts. So lost in thought was I that I was startled when a deeper masculine barked out a surprised _"Oh! You." _

I looked up. Sure enough, I'd somehow found my way to the courtyard where the bleachers were. Where the seminar had been. A few people were wandering around the sidewalks but the bleachers were empty save for a single man, looking straight at me.

I didn't know what to say.

"You're that… Hero girl." Devin Maxworth said simply.

I shrugged.

"She fuck you up, too?"

I didn't need to ask who. The answer was as obvious. I nodded.

"I could use some company. Wanna have a seat?"

I wasn't really sure. This man was central to all of my problems but he'd been the final break. He'd abandoned everyone, even if he'd been manipulated into his answer. It still hurt. It felt like we'd been betrayed.

I sat down.

We were quiet for a while. I hadn't yet actually said a word to him and it grated on the guy. I couldn't really blame him. I supposed I was being a little creepy.

"So… do you ah… talk?" He asked when the silence managed to become too awkward.

"Yeah," I said with smile, which I felt guilty about the second I showed it. He had short brown hair and a broad face, with a wide jaw. He was muscled, his body showing strong evidence of daily workouts. His eyes were the only thing really unusual about him as they seemed a hair bigger than normal. As if maybe they had no whites. Just pupil all the way around. Reminded me a little of anime eyes actually. Unnerving.

_Useful. Camera's with full vision, playback on a spherical room walls. Workable. Surveillance rooms on upper levels. _

What? Before my eyes were… schematics? Blueprints? As if… I…?

Whatever. I didn't have time to worry about that.

"So, what brings you back to this fucking place?" He asked me as he lay back on the large stone bleacher.

"I don't really know. I've been walking for hours. I guess this is just where I ended up." I told him simply. "How about you?"

"Been here for almost the whole day," he said. "No one seems to want to sit with me much anymore. Looks like they took me abandoning the professors as me abandoning everyone. Fuck, I feel like such an ass. I didn't mean I wouldn't ever help anyone again but everyone seems to be taking it that way."

I cringed. At least no one else seemed to blame me like that. It could've been worse. I had to deal with my own imagined failure. My own belief that I would simply abandon everyone. Lose everyone. Thank god she hadn't made me answer. Abandon my team and fight to hopefully save people who hated me? Vigilant was probably feeling worse than I was. But his problem was easy enough to fix.

"Uhm. Have you thought about just trying to stop a crime? Show that you didn't mean you'd abandon everyone? Just the professors who were slinging hate at you?" I asked, honestly curious.

He gave a bitter laugh. "Heh. See any crime around here? Honestly, I almost wish Obelisk would try another robbery just so I could earn a pinch of my reputation back. When I first got these powers I thought it was going to be so awesome. Just like the comic books! Who knew I'd lose all my friends, girlfriend, and job in the first two months. And that was _before_ fucking Taylor and her damn speech."

Shit. I thought I had it bad. It seemed he'd lost everything to his powers. Even with all that though…

"You still did the right thing though."

He stared at me and I gave him a smile. I felt strangely comfortable around him. We were connected through a horrifying shared experience. The others who watched the video didn't understand what it had been like, being the focus of Taylor's gaze. I was almost certain she had a power of her own. A power far more terrifying than Vigilant, Obelisk, Blight, or any other cape I could think of.

The alternative was that I was having nightmares, losing sleep, obsessing, forgetting my music, and all around losing my life because a girl _talked_ at me for a few minutes. That said a lot about my self esteem. Or lack of it.

"You think?" He asked. "For me, it wasn't about doing the right thing. My friends were… jealous. My girlfriend apparently thought my eyes were creepy and she hated that I could see through… erm… Ah."

I giggled. Weirdly, I didn't mind. Its not like he could turn off his eyesight, and his eyes had been purely focused on mine this whole time.

Er… wait. Spherical vision. His eyes were focused 'everywhere' at once. So maybe they _had_ been lingering on my privates. Okay, yeah, I could see why his ex might find that a little creepy.

"Then what was it about?" I asked, subconsciously folding my arms across my chest.

He frowned at my gesture, a guilty grimace that said quite a bit about his personality. I liked him a bit more for that, but still didn't let my hands fall. He was clearly feeling ashamed of what he could do.

"It was… it was… validation, I guess. I'd lost most of my friends already, and my girlfriend was on edge. I felt like being a hero would make the trouble it'd given me already worth it. Just made everything worse though," He sighed, dismally.

I shook my head and put a hand on his shoulder. "No it didn't. Like Taylor said, you might've saved everyone else's life in that bank. Obelisk could've killed everyone."

"That's not what I meant. Is it selfish that I was only thinking about how I made everything worse for _me?" _He asked. "I know Taylor was probably right. What I did felt right, and still does, but I can't help but think _my life_ wouldn't be quite so shitty right now If I hadn't done a damn thing."

It was so simple though. Couldn't he see? No one ever said being a hero was easy and he'd already proven himself under pressure once. His words at the seminar, and even him telling me now how hard dealing with the consequences of his actions was, only further validated that they'd been the right ones. He'd saved people.

"So?" I asked. "So what? So you have doubts. You want things to go well for you. Who doesn't?"

"You think its that easy?" He asked.

"Yeah. Its human to be a little selfish." I said simply. "Its human to not want to save people like those professors, too. Taylor twisted it, but I knew what you meant."

_I'd do almost anything to get rid of these damn dreams, for example. _

"Wish Diana would've seen it that way. What's your name, Hero?" He asked with a quirk of his cheek.

"Theresa," I told him cocking my own head, flushing a little. Was it weird that I liked being called that? Bah.

"Devin," He said quickly. "But you probably already knew that."

"Yeah but its nice to hear from the person behind the powers. You're not all that bad from what I've seen. I don't know if I could've done what you did at that bank."

_Civilians difficult to defend here. Area open, protection minimal. Bunker required. _

"Hey, listen. Uh… any chance you want to go get a drink with me? Talking with you has been… nice." He stuttered lamely.

Wow. Oh wow, did not see that one coming. He was so damned shy it was cute. Especially since he was such a burly person. I couldn't help but wonder just how much of my body he could see with those too-wide eyes of his but...

_I haven't seen a single person maimed or withered since I started talking to him. _

"Sure."

* * *

><p>"What the fuck, Hero!?" Devin yelled from somewhere outside, startling the shit out of me. I clanged my head against the hard metal underside of the third floor of the contraption I was building, but he didn't seem to care much about that.<p>

"Oooowwww…" I moaned grabbing my throbbing forehead. "Don't scare me like that!" I yelled back down. It was pretty dark in here and that made it really hard to see where he was. I activated the surveillance system on my glasses and synced it to one of the camera's I had on the front entrance.

"What the hell did you do to this place!?" He yelled. He really was an obnoxious sort.

"I was just… tinkering." I told him, my voice echoing through the floors and vibrating the metal Vigilant couldn't see through.

"You've been gone for two _days_ Theresa! I'm really getting worried about you."

"Come on it wasn't that long," I yelled. Unfortunately I managed to lose my concentration and dropped my wrench. It clattered right by my ear with yet another loud 'clang.'

"Seriously, what the hell do you do out here?" He asked me, his tone fading from angered to merely curious. "This thing is huge!"

"That's what I said!" I told him, unable to resist the sex joke, and I could almost feel him blush. Honestly, for a guy who could see anyone naked at any time, he was such a prude.

I smiled a little, picking my torque wrench back up and starting to twist again. Oh god dammit. My goggles had dented the metal! How the hell did that happen!? Ugh. Oh well. It was a deep interior part anyways and not a vital one.

A love dent. It'd be my little secret. Also, good to know that these goggles I'd built were sturdy as hell! My forehead much less so.

I thought I was getting the hang of what I could do. Little ideas here and there, with big ones stashed away, ideas growing for them every so often.

I needed to protect people, keep them safe, and weirdly, the best way to do that was to know what was coming. That and a mixture of Devin's uncanny ability to always know where everything was had sparked my first idea.

Surveillance drones. The real trick wasn't building them but making them able to recharge their own batteries whenever they got low. I kept four or five situated about me all the time, and tagged Devin with two or three. They had a bloody annoying alarm when danger was near that I'd cannibalized from my alarm clock and duplicated several times over.

Devin had been... annoyed at them of course. That lead to cloaking them. At first that had been a problem but the more I thought about it, the easier it became.

The more I thought about _any_ problem the easier it became. I could churn out ten of the little drones in an hour now, each with their own personal cloaking devices so they blended into the scenery.

All I had to do was want to protect something and nothing could stop me. I'd needed a receptor because there wasn't much point in having all that surveillance if I couldn't watch what was going on, so I'd built the goggles. My goggles could uplink to any one of the drones at will. Not perfect but, I made do.

"Theresa, can you come down from there?" Devin asked, whining cutely.

"Why don't you come up here?" I asked coyly.

In the month since we'd met nearly my entire life hand turned upside down. And almost entirely for the better.

Devin was… great. I loved spending time with him, but more than that… this new hobby of mine. It was fulfilling in a way nothing else I'd ever done before could compare to.

It took two weeks and the knowledge that I'd built _automated flying drones_ as a part of a hobby before I realized that something seriously unusual was going on. I'd thought the metal crafting and welding had just been an unusual talent at first. I'd liked it a lot more once I'd gotten my hands dirty and oily. Then I'd loved it. Soon I _revelled _in the feeling.

I had powers. Some sort of superhuman intelligence that allowed me to build… _stuff. _Really fucking cool stuff.

"Theresa, dammit I don't even know where you are!"

Hmm, he actually seemed a little bit pissed. Probably better talk to him.

"Alright, on my way down. Just let me mark my place." I yelled down. I hung the wrench on a small divot I'd made for it, as I knew I'd be spending quite a while up there when I'd first started building this, but grabbed most of my other tools. It would really suck to lose one of them up here, especially when I finally activated the thing.

It was going to be my masterpiece. For now, anyway, until I could get the material to start building The Tower. I could hardly believe that this shit was possible, but I was building it, and it was coming together before my eyes.

My portable bunker, with shrinking tech.

Fuck yeah.

I shimmied my way out of the space in the second floor's ceiling, which was a rather tight squeeze, and slowly made my way to the open panel before climbing out onto the third floor. The roof wasn't covered yet so the thing looked like a shell with multiple levels held up by a dome-like skeleton of Phrinny Metal. That was the name I was playing with for it anyway. A new alloy that I'd had to create to withstand the effect of shrinking, and the barriers that would be held in place by its strength. Among… other uses.

Like shielding the eyes of a man who could see through anything.

"There you are!" Devin exclaimed.

_He needs eye protection. Should build him some goggles too for when he's not in the armor. Fuck, I hope he likes it! _

I slid down a ladder and bounded down the next one before finally coming to a stop on solid ground.

"Hi Devin!" I said, happily. I really felt good about today.

"Theresa, I know you like building stuff lately but Marietta called me and told me that you broke your keyboard for…" He paused, his eyes trailing downwards, which was weird enough on its own. He rarely actually turned his eyes since they could see everywhere. "...Is that a blow torch?"

I looked down to the canister and spicket hanging off my belt loop and resting against my baggy work pants.

"Yes. Yes it is." I told him, slightly embarrassed.

"Where… did you get… a…?"

"I sorta built it. I built almost everything here."

"Where did you get all the _metal!?" _

"The building next door's support frame on the top floor. Just kinda pushed it off and dragged it over really, one piece at a time" I told him flippantly.

It suddenly occurred to me that I might look a little less attractive to him than ever at the moment. I was dirty. I probably looked like ass right now. I brought a hand to my cheek and rubbed, cringing at the black soot I found on my thumb.

"Ah… er… you wanted to talk about something?" I asked, a little ashamed. My newest creation, the work of two days, had taken up nearly the entirety of my workshop, an abandoned building on the northeast side of town, and I'd been here nonstop that whole time. I think I slept under the staircase I'd built for the second floor…

"I'm just worried about you! You… Your friends say you used to love your music. Hell _I love_ your music! When I found out you'd busted up your keyboard I…"

My heart gave a tiny little leap at that. He cared about me. Fuck I was so goddamn lucky.

_Diana eat your heart out you bitch! I win! You can't have him back so there!_

"Devin… I… don't care about music anymore. I don't… I can't. This… this is too big. I have to build it. I have to build _everything_."

He cocked a curious eyebrow at me.

"I… you know how you call me Hero sometimes?" I asked, tugging on my braid as it hung down on my right shoulder. I'd taken to wearing it in a braid lately. Oh, fuck I was still wearing my goggles! I must look like an alien!

He nodded.

"I'm going to be. That's my name… I… well, maybe its better if I show you."

He followed me sort of mutely as I walked him over towards where I was keeping our powersuits hidden. Fuck I was so nervous. What if he didn't go for it? I wrung my hands a bit as I pulled up to where both of our suits were hidden under some cheap curtains I'd found in the next building.

I pulled them off to reveal the gleaming golden metal of my own suit and the shining emerald I'd chosen for his.

His jaw dropped.

"Devin. I… I'm going to be _Hero. _Capital H. She gave me the name, and whatever this thing I can do is, it lets me build things that can protect people. Maybe protect _everyone_ if I work hard enough. Everything I try to build gets easier and easier the more I work at it. I… I want to show Taylor that I won't fail. I want to… fuck I don't know. I… built you this... Uhm, Devin?_"_

_He looks so stupid with his mouth hanging open like that. _

He turned, slowly bringing his unusual eyes around to stare at me directly. "Uhm… Devin?" I repeated.

"You… built me a costume? Holy fuck that thing looks cool." He breathed, his eyes focused so much I thought he might actually not be able to see me.

_Heh, boys and their toys. Fuck yeah it looks cool! I built it, dammit! I'm Hero! Best builder alive! I think._

"Uhm. Yes? D-do you like it?" I said, much more shyly than my thoughts.

"You have got to be the most awesome girlfriend a guy could ever have."

Without warning he swept me into a toe curling kiss.

I was going to be the best Hero this world had ever seen. I was going to start my own section of the Wardens, right here. I'd protect this whole city and someday maybe I'd be able to build something that could save everyone from bastards like Blight. I'd live up to the name she gave me.

_I'm stronger than all your misery. I'll show you… Taylor._

* * *

><p><strong>End Chapter<strong>


	6. Interlude – Eyespy

**Author's Notes: **Again, further chapters are available on Spacebattles forum. Special thanks to MarkerIV and Fantasyra for their awesome idea bouncing skills and Trier for the super edits!

This chapter took a little while to fix as there was a lot that people seemed to dislike about the characterization. Hopefully this version fits a little better, and jives with future events more cleanly. Honestly, I can't believe I'm only posting chapter six here when Chapter twelve is currently in progress. Heh. Seems so friggin weird. This version is not perfect and never will be, but it is as good as I believe I can make it. I do hope you enjoy it, as I hope you do with all my works to come.

**Chapter Six: Interlude - Eyespy**

Immigrating to Earth Dalet had worked out well for us Heberts. After the move, I had gotten a management position out at BigRoad Communications near Washington DC, only two hours away from Villa Grove University where Taylor was now attending. I managed a group of fifteen voice installation engineers who were responsible for remotely configuring customer's phone systems. They were a rowdy and young bunch, most between 25 and 35 and often I felt like they were no better than teenagers. Still, it was a nice change from managing a union of older disgruntled dock workers.

A relic of corporate culture was the closed IRC chat room conveniently titled #nope. There, my engineers vented their compressed stress, usually in the form of various internet memes or the latest youtube video craze. Being their supervisor came with the benefit of shameless indulgence without having to look them up, and also came with the necessary degree of separation required to laugh.

After a year of working with my team we were comfortable enough with each other that they knew I would let that sort of behavior slide so long as the work got done and the customers, both internal and external, were happy.

"Hey James," I called out. "Could you handle Joey's request in #bizvoip? She has been waiting five minutes to have a Voice Portal admin password reset so she can walk a customer through recording their auto attendant greeting."

Honestly, I didn't know what a lot of that meant. But handling people was my job, not the actual software and hardware. Occasionally I felt out of my depth, but most of the time one of my people could explain to me exactly what was going on, if I needed it.

I didn't like to do that often. It didn't pay to be less knowledgeable than your subordinate, and it paid even less to _look_ less knowledgable. These kids knew their shit, and keeping up could be a hassle, so I actually spent a large amount of my time reading manuals in order to at least pace them, if not catch up.

"Sure Danny," James said, "but checkout #nope. That girl is priceless!"

For most, that comment would not be a concern. I'd been linked more videos of idiots doing stupid crap, that I could hardly believe how many there were. I've seen video _compilations_ of stupid, and after seeing a hundred plus men take it in the nads to a theme song, the abject horror dissipates enough to start laughing. Those, and the horrible videos like them that so amuse my new subordinates have slowly removed my capacity to be instantly traumatised by what I see. By now, I couldn't imagine the video was so disturbing that I'd have trouble with it. Priceless. Unusual word choice. Something about that moment, that exact phrasing, caught me on edge. Nervously I clicked the link.

"_Cripple for Capes."_

"Aww... _Fuck."_

Before the video had even buffered my heart knew. She hadn't lasted a week. Not even a blooming week.

I palmed my face nervously and let one eye peek as the video finished buffering and began playing.

Social injustice was the heart of it. Our family's weakness, though Taylor never knew it. Her mother had been quite the avid protester for various civil causes before life came along and distracted her with more important things like pregnancy and raising a child. Even I still wasn't really emotionally past the ferry issue regardless of how that universe and its associated problems were completely lost to me.

The video played. Taylor, Skitter, Weaver, Khepri. I couldn't tell which name was most apt. She held the crowd in the palm of her hand. Even over the distance granted by time and space it still felt like I was there and she was working her magic. Her cruelty to the girl 'Hero' was heartbreaking. That was all Skitter, so willing to hurt others when she felt it necessary.

No evidence of the butterfly girl anymore. She'd apparently needed the cold, the heartless, the daunting, and the indomitable. If it had been any other girl it would've been almost funny how she steamrolled over every comment the professors tried to put forth, until they were wallowing in their own guilt, and the crowd was practically in tears.

Where had I failed so badly as a father that this had become the norm? I watched with barely concealed tears of my own as my child consigned the rest of her classmates to die, within her perilously realistic fantasy , and then stalked off into the afternoon sun like some sort of twilight monster.

_Fuck how do I fix this?_

I swivelled in my chair away from my desktop and booted up my laptop. The device was my sole guilty pleasure that I had managed to bring from Bet. It wasn't technically a legal import, nothing from Bet was, but the data on it was priceless to me. I connected it to our LAB network's wifi and quickly clicked through the various prompts required by Windows to access the network.

As Taylor had grown up, I'd felt whole. I loved being her father and even though she was a Mommy's Girl through and through, she loved me just the same. Things faded after Annette died though, and we'd drifted. She turned out the world diving further and further into introversion, and the smiling girl I and my wife had raised became a stoic parody of herself that I didn't know how to relate to. The bullying only made it worse, because It had been going on for so long and I'd never even noticed.

After Taylor had left and started spending nights at Lisa's, I knew that I'd failed as a father. Annette was probably ashamed of me. Maybe it was stupid, or even embarrassing for an old Union man to spend time scrapbooking and collecting videos but somehow I'd needed to get closer to her. The girl I'd abandoned. So I gathered. Just trinkets at first, and old pictures of Taylor and her mother, placed on the fireplace mantle. I dug out a few home videos recorded ages ago and repeatedly watched them on an old VCR player.

Priceless memories. All gone.

Most of it was trashed in Leviathan's attack, and what little remained I'd been unable to bring over. I'd managed to snag a stuffed cat she'd loved as a baby before leaving, ruined now by the waves, but still precious to me. My physical reminders of the happy girl she'd once been, dwindled to that one piece, and the pictures and videos from her years as a villain, hero, savior, and mindless child in an adult's body, on a laptop.

The Parahumans Online website was fueled mostly by people too nosy to stay out of danger with cell phones. They'd been the key to half my laptop's contents. I had collected photos and videos of everything I could, shameful or not. My favorites, depressingly, were the little ones spent teaching her to speak again. To read again, which had always been one of her favorite hobbies. In the moment those times had been so hard, but now that they were in the past she felt like my little girl again. It felt like maybe I had been a good father.

What does it say about me, that twice I could feel like I'd been a good father, and twice my daughter had flung herself into near villainy without regard for anyone else?

I pulled up Firefox searched Youtube for the video. Once found, I downloaded and saved the video to the directory where I kept all things Taylor. After it finished, I browsed the directory briefly, glancing at the preview images and thinking about the contents of what I had collected. I moused over the video where some fearful member of the ABB had recorded Lung getting attacked by a swarm of bees and spiders. Almost clicked a video from only ten months or so ago when she'd been trying so hard to read a children's book… and failing rather cutely. Her frustration, now that the trauma was passed, had been adorable. At the time it had felt hopeless, but luckily she was smarter than him even with only half her mind. She recovered.

Snippets of the Leviathan battle were there. A video of her declaration of ownership for the boardwalk of Brockton Bay. Pictures of her fighting against the Slaughterhouse 9, one rare find, saved on a cell phone of a man I'd met by pure chance, held a scene of her holding Mannequin's head. That was one of the few I had found that I had no mixed emotions about. Only pride. The Behemoth fight that had become national news, and easy to gather. Another labeled "Arcadia" made my heart clench a little.

...A security camera view of her as she murdered Tagg and Alexandria. I think that was the first time I'd ever been _afraid_ of my daughter. She was my little girl wasn't she? So how could she have become…?

Happier videos of her heroics as Weaver and the celebration at the end of the Golden Morning where she released the last of her hostages and disappeared into the portal eased the pain of her villainy. Finally, and warmest of all were the pictures taken two days ago when I dropped her off at college.

_Here you go Taylor. Fresh meat. Feel free to take all the territory you want. Its yours now, you little conqueror._

I shuddered. I felt guilty at the thought, but only a mild pang. She was a fox and this whole _world_ was a henhouse. I'd long come to terms with the fact that my daughter was a ruler, a veteran in a world of children. I just prayed she didn't try to rule the wrong city. Country. _Or fuck, the World._

She'd spilled everything to me, broken english slowly returning. Awkward, and uneven, sometimes even tearful she'd told me her story, but I still felt that she never let me in. Never let me see the _true_ feelings behind each action as she stoically recounted her memories of joining the Undersiders.

Everything she'd done, _always_ had a purpose. Taking over the bay, to help fix it, because only she could.

_Couldn't she have found a better way? Did she have to _rule_ like a master over sheep?_

Tagg and Alexandria.

_Murdered for revenge. Her worst act, to me. It was the only one without that sense of _ purpose_ behind it._

The years since spent fighting the Endbringers. Endless footage that I'd had to pick and choose from because there'd been so much. The pride and terror of remembering how she would constantly risk her life for capes far weaker than herself. There was so much _good_ that she had done.

_So why can't I see the silver lining in this? Dammit, she had to have had a reason. She _always_ had a reason! She didn't have to DO this!_

It didn't matter what I told myself. I still felt betrayed. Betrayed, because I'd thought we'd finally reached it. I could grow old knowing my daughter had lived to reach her Garden of Eden, as it were.

My mouse lingered on one of my favorites, a video of her speaking to children sometime after she'd become Weaver. But I closed it instead. Not here. I was too scared that someone else might step in to see them.

I was moody and awkward for the last twenty minutes of my shift. I anguished over the clock, and snapped at my subordinates for pointless reasons. I didn't have any time or patience for it today. I had to make sure my daughter didn't _lay claim_ to Centralia. Luckily it was already near the end of the day.

I left work right at five and in a rush. If I only stopped to grab a quick burger from Jack in the Box I could get to Taylor in about two hours, spend 30 minutes talking with her, and then make the 2 hour trip back to D.C. Getting me back to my modest abode at about 10ish. Not the most ideal plan considering I worked tomorrow at seven in the morning but it would have to do.

"Hey boss!" Terrence, one of my senior engineers, called out to me as I threw on my jacket.

"What, Terrence?" I asked curtly, making it known that I was in a hurry. I was normally much kinder but at the moment I just didn't care.

"It ok if I clock some overtime tonight? I'm going to reorganize the lab, clean things up a bit." His flippant tone showed he hadn't even noticed my irritation.

Overtime was cherished at the company. The time and a half pay on the hour was greatly coveted and infrequently available. I was going to have to make sure we had the budget for it when I got in tomorrow but at the moment I had bigger problems.

"Whatever, just make sure you finish it and that it looks good."

"In a rush boss?" He asked softly finally picking up on my social cues and body language. I swear all of my employees have aspergers.

"Bit of an emergency. I'll see you tomorrow, Terrence."

My mind was already hours away, trying to form the words that would inevitably make it to my daughter's ears. I stalked out of the office and got into my small black Honda Civic. Exiting the parking lot, I merged into traffic and was shortly on the highway. Sentences kept bouncing around in my head seeking outlet. I must have had the 'conversation' with Taylor a dozen times in my head before I finally pulled into the lot near her dorm.

I walked the path into her dorm with weighted and slow steps that got me there much too quickly. The two hours that it had taken me to get here went too fast and I still wasn't certain on just what I was going to say. Time was up, I knocked once - hard, on the door.

My daughter's hug, her voice, so seemingly normal, reminded me heavily of the weeks before Arcadia. When I had known nothing of her heroism nor her villainy.

My emotions were still tumbling half an hour later as I left the dorm. I was simultaneously proud of my daughter and horrified that we were at the end of the quiet that had defined this last year. My steps felt no lighter than they had when I'd entered as I walked back to my car. In fact, they felt heavier.

I'd put on a bold face for her friends, but the truth was I could feel myself breaking apart.

The air was cool. Twilight was nearly ready to give up its hold on the sky and let it plunge into darkness, and deep black clouds were rolling in. It would rain tonight, probably on my way back. A few leaves lay on the sidewalk signifying the coming fall weather. My steps were marked with the crunch of the dried and dead ones that had already fallen.

As I glanced around at the beautiful landscaping I remembered thinking this was a great place for her to live. That I could afford the few extra hundred dollars to see her in the apartment rather than just a dorm where she might feel confined. Silly now. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd put her in a prison. She wouldn't be _confined _anywhere.

It all felt so hopeless! When I had been reunited with her, she had been in such poor shape. Her body had been put through the grinder, her arm was gone and at times that seemed like the _least_ of her problems.

She could barely talk or understand when someone was talking to her at first. It was like some critical piece of her cognitive ability was missing. Simple things like making her way to the restroom or bringing a spoon to her mouth were so difficult but she had recovered. It had taken months and months but she had managed. I still saw the emotional scars crop up occasionally, PSTD like symptoms- nightmares, random crying fits, but for the most part she was functional. Now once again, powers were going to take my baby girl away from me. Hurt her. Morph her. Turn her into that… _bug._

Fuck I was separating the two of them in my own head. Skitter and Taylor, like they were two different people.

She and I both knew her promise no matter how earnestly given would not restrain her for long. Something would happen, some life she could save or some wrong she would need to fix and the moment would compel her to action. She would take it too far though. She would bring the proverbial gun to the knife fight while all I could do was _watch._

_Sit back and fucking watch. _

I opened my car door and got in, sitting motionless for a few moments before my emotional control shattered completely. The tears came and I started bashing on the steering wheel and dashboard, yelling and cursing my hatred for the world, Scion and anything else I could name. I could not protect my daughter. I couldn't even hold her hand as she plunged into it all. Once again I would be helpless against a world that seemed determined to throw her into the fire.

I snapped. It came as I wept into my steering wheel, and it flew by in an instant. I saw it, _saw them_. Two orbiting entities, a cycle that was ment to continue in perpetuity. Both dead now. Broken through chance, and by my daughter's will, pieces breaking off them like bits of diamond falling off a whole planet of the beautiful stone. The image of a furious golden man and then a sensation of being burned in an all encompassing fire swam in my mind's eye for a moment that lasted an eternity.

I awoke from the vision in a sweat and was still, silent with tracks of tears falling down my face. I knew and yet did not know what I had just seen. The images tried to slip from my memory and I wordlessly fought to hold on to what I could, succeeding, unlike dreams after waking, where no matter how you tried they slipped from your grasp.

I DID know what it meant, and the thought was horrifying. Now? Why now? Why here? Hadn't losing Taylor been enough for me to trigger at Arcadia? Hadn't watching my daughter play a part in the death of Behemoth been enough? What about seeing her broken and dying, unable to even speak, missing her arm, at times seeming more an animal than a person?

No. None of that had been enough but _this_ was. Why? Why couldn't it have happened sooner? I could've helped! I could've… done something. Anything. I didn't even care what my new powers might be. As far as I was concerned they could rot. Life ruiners. Warbringers, the lot of them, but of course, since when did my will matter?

They activated without direction as my overwhelming desire to see Taylor again almost pushed me to go back upstairs. Then suddenly she was there. I could see her in her room with her friends. She was sitting in front of a large TV, eating potatoes.

"So speeches like last Thursday… Are they the norm with you?" Sophia asked.

"_...No."_

I laughed myself back to tears as my daughter lied her teeth off. A bitter laugh, filled with the knowledge of what must have just run through her mind.

I was startled by a sudden sound and the image broke. A security guard was tapping on the window. I rolled it down.

"Are you ok sir?" He asked.

The guard was young, obviously a student who was working part time. Probably new to his position as he appeared to be more than slightly nervous and uncomfortable in his blue uniform. I took a couple of breaths to put myself together before answering. My thoughts went to Taylor again and I could see that she was with her friends and smiling.

Maybe this wasn't so bad… If only it had come sooner.

"No," I told the boy, gently as I could. "But I think I am going to be. I think I am going to be alright."

He smiled and we both nodded a farwell. I pulled out of the lot and and eventually onto the highway.

Nearly an hour of mindless driving passed. The weather worsened considerably. Thunder suddenly boomed and in the distance a spike of lightning flashed before rain began to fall. During the drive my power kept activating instinctively. Visions of places and people I cared about, even in Earth Bet. I probably had less attention on the road than a drunkard but I didn't care.

Taylor. It showed me her talking. Making friends. The two girls really had seemed to like her, and she liked them in return. She sounded so normal and where her words had failed to restore my hope this… this little image of her being so very _happy_… this did wonders.

It wasn't just Tayor though. With my will I suddenly found myself looking at Annette. My wife… but not this one. She was another Annette. Anne Rose, Taylor had taken to calling her, and I liked that. I didn't want anything to ever replace her mother's memory. Seeing this form of her smile and being treated well made me feel good as well.

By the time I was halfway home my spirits had lifted considerably. With this.. with this I could truly see my daughter. See the girl I'd raised and know if she really was the hero of her story, or the deluded villain I'd seen in that video in Arcadia. In Tagg's office.

With this, I could protect her, no matter which turned out to be true. Warn her, watch over her. Maybe even be a real father to her.

I peeked in on her again, just one more time, and blanche d.

Oops.

I felt a tad guilty for that, but after the months spent spoon feeding her, helping her change with only one arm until she could do it herself, accidentally seeing her step into the shower almost annoyed me.

Maybe… there was a better way of keeping her safe? Could I find dangers to her? Could I… ask what I was looking for and maybe get a vision of someone I _didn't_ know?

"Show me the largest danger to my daughter's safety…" I demanded. My power obliged.

The vision coalesced into an above view of a brown head of hair and a very familiar pair of computers. One laptop and one desktop. My work desk? But who…?

_I recognize that guy!_

Terrence from work? I was confused for a moment before the images on his screen became clear. Images on _MY _screen. Horror filled me. My laptop. Oh god, I'd left it out and he…! Oh god what had I done!?

He was watching the Behemoth fight from my laptop. On the other screen he'd connected to, YouTube was shining.

_Oh god… how could I be so STUPID!?_

Horror lingered only for a moment. Sudden rage, hot and burning, took its place and consumed me utterly. My vision seemed to cloud over in a red fog. I snapped back to reality in anger and fury.

My hand groped frantically for my cell phone. My fingers grasped it then hurriedly found Terrence's cell in my directory and dialed it.

The vision was still there, held in the back of my mind. I watched him jump, shocked as my call interrupted his viewing of my PRIVATE computer and then pulled out his phone. Was that fear in his eyes? If not, it soon fucking would be. If he had done anything… told _anyone…!_

"Hey boss. Something up?" He asked, and I heard the words in stereo from my vision and the ear piece. They only cracked a little, but more than enough that his nervousness would've screamed an alarm even without my powers.

"Terrence." My voice _boomed _through the phone_._ The combined stress of the evening was leaking into my words. I probably sounded more like a bear than a man. I don't know if I'd ever been so mad in all my life. "Stop what you are doing. Right now. And I may just let you keep your _job._"

"Wh-what!? I don't-!"

I didn't let him speak. There was no time to let him make excuses. I had to keep him off balance and spring into action. Now I had something I could protect. Fuck, had he uploaded anything? The Arcadia video would _ruin her!_

"You're going to close that computer. You're going to forget everything you saw on it. Or you're not going to have anyway to pay off Sandra's new car, come tomorrow. Get me, son?"

"F-f-fuck." He stuttered and it annoyed me. _"Fuck! _You and her are..._"_

"Going to be a _nightmare _for you if you don't close that laptop and get the _hell out of my office_." My rage was cold. It simmered and I could practically feel his fear. Was _this_ what Taylor did to people? "I will know if you don't. And _god help you_ if she finds out what you know. I surely can't stop her. I wouldn't even _try._"

"Shit… fuck fuck, Y-Yes Sir! I'm going! I'm going and I won't tell any-!"

I hung up and tossed the cell into my bag. My vision returned to my body only to see a wall of red lights in front of me.

I had only a moment to mirror Terrence's thought. _"Fuck..._"

I slammed my foot on the breaks and yanked up on the emergency brake, but it wasn't going to be enough. My power activated unconsciously again at the same moment as my car slammed into the rear end of the Honda Odyssey in front of me at a solid sixty miles per hour.

The glass shattered, but I barely felt it. Barely felt my airbag as it exploded out, or the tug of my seat belt as it held me down. All I could see was the car in front of me propel twenty feet forward in an instant, curving out towards the shoulder and straight into another waiting vehicle.

One of the young children in the back seat, a girl, did not have her seatbelt on. I watched as her body flew towards the window in the aftershock of our collision. My mind superimposed Taylor's face on hers and I panicked. My desire to protect her was overwhelming and suddenly I could feel around her. A blue shield popped into being hugging her skin and clothes close as she exploded out the front windshield and bounced off the corner the car in front of her and tumbled into the ditch. Her limbs flailed like a ragdoll. She flew off of the highway over ten feet, her body scraping along the soaked mud before coming to a stop in the cold rain.

_I killed her… fuck, I killed her!_

My panic subsided quickly though. She should have been dead, but as the blue shield faded she hesitantly stood up, shaking dizziness from herself and then crying out for her parents and rushing back toward the wreck.

My vision faded from around her and instantly blasted to the parents, snug in their airbags and seatbelts.

_Thank god for airbags._ Was my thought as I withdrew my head from its own pillow. I slowly moved my limbs one at a time to make sure everything was in working order. I was relieved to find nothing blatantly broken. I groped idly for my cell phone again. My fingers grasped it then dialed 911.

"911, what is your emergency?" The voice over the phone was accompanied by a buzzing sound.

_I think I might have a concussion._

"Car accident. On I-95 just north of … ah… Exit 78, I just rear ended a mini-van. It looks bad, but there don't appear to be any fatalities." I was dizzy and disoriented as I stumbled from the car. The airbags and seatbelts looked to have done their job even on second glance as I watched the two parents drearily make their own way from the car. With the exception of course being the little girl. She had been thrown clear. Thanks to the blue bubble I'd surrounded her with she was up… she was alive.

Staring at her, I could no longer stand. I lost my footing, and the contents of my stomach in the same moment.

"Sir, are you alright? What is your name?" The lady over the phone prodded.

"Hebert, Danny Hebert." I said through the horrid taste in my mouth when I had recovered enough to speak. I could tell with a detached sense of reality that my voice was audibly shaking, my heart was pounding. In all likelihood I was going into shock.

"Understood Danny. Please remain calm, emergency services are on their way, and do not hang up the phone." I grunted out my agreement.

"Eye-spy..."

"Huh? " The girl who had been thrown clear was standing beside me now and tugging on my shirt sleeve. Not a scratch on her. The sight brought tears to my eyes. She couldn't have been older than six. Not even two hours into having a power and I had almost killed someone. That she was alive was pure luck.

"We were just playing eye-spy. I unbuckled to point it out..." My eyes flashed to the gaping hole in the windshield of the blue minivan, passengers whose horrified faces were visible behind the deflating airbags. I could see them look from the hole to the vaguely humanoid imprint in the car in front of them. The rest of the passengers stumbled from the vehicle in an awkward daze. Finding me, the cause of their trauma standing by their missing and thankfully whole daughter must have been a shock to their system as well. They joined me in standing around stupidly in the rain for a moment before screeching and hugging the youngest.

"I'll never do it again. _P-Promise…" _The girl told them, crying her eyes out. I was no better.

Is this what it had been like for Taylor when she had first gotten powers? I was suddenly terrified and it granted me a wonderful window of understanding as to what life must have been like for her at the hospital in those first few hours after her trigger, and beyond.

The father of the family had finished hugging his daughter and was now giving his attention to me. He was stocky and his shoulders were all bunched up and his face was clearly reddening.

_I wonder if this is how my employees see me when I am about to explode._

"You were on your damn cell phone weren't ya!" He accused. My eyes flickered to the cell phone which was still online with the emergency response center. While I had been on the phone, that wasn't exactly why I had run into them. My face must have shown my guilt. "You FUCKING bastard! You nearly killed my daughter!"

_I was trying to save mine..._

People had begun to stop, someone had lit flares and caution lights on either side of the accident and passersby were taking a good hard look at the results of my mistake.

I felt so guilty.

"She should be dead Dennis." The woman had let go of her daughter and grabbed her husband's wrist tightly, holding him back. He resisted momentarily before relenting as his wife's words were slowly processed. "She wasn't wearing her seatbelt. She should be dead and instead she's ok." The two of them looked at each other before their eyes darted between me and their daughter. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"She bounced off of that car and went flying..." Dennis' wife trailed off, eerily calm, her voice loud enough to be heard over the thunderous rain.

Abruptly she jerked to her feet and was suddenly in my face, tear streaked eyes demanding my focus as her hands reached out and pulled my head close so that she could talk to me quietly.

"Sir? Sir! Dammit they never stay on the line!" I heard drift over the phone.

"Just tell me one thing... Did you save her?" The question paralyzed me. If I said yes I was more or less outing myself as a cape, within two hours of triggering. How did Taylor keep this under wraps for months? The dilemma must have shown on my face because she nodded solemnly.

_Perhaps this is the reason capes wear masks._

"Listen to me," her voice although quiet was more than a little hysterical. Her words were weighty and demanding. "Thank you for saving my daughter... but this? This wasn't 'good.' You could've killed her! "

"I'm… so… sorry… I…" My words were choked, and my mouth tasted bitter. My cheeks were wet with rain that hid tears. I leaned shakily against my totalled car grasping the hot metal for support.

"You're just lucky she's alive, or I swear to god you wouldn't be," Dennis' face was progressively getting more red but he appeared to deflate as I nodded nervously.

I fled from the family and quickly gathering bystanders. With no where else left to go I went back to and hid in the back of my crumpled Civic. As the cops and emergency services showed up I realized that it was going to be a long night and I was going to have to answer some awkward questions.

* * *

><p>I'd managed to keep my daughter from finding out about the wreck for a whole month. I'd replaced the Civic as it was a total loss but I was well off enough that I could afford it. Barely.<p>

That woman's words weighed heavily on my mind. I had powers. I'd saved that girl from my own mess. Stopped Terrence, once again cleaning up my own mess. It felt so hollow.

Every day I asked my power for dangers to Taylor and found few of them. She was safe. She was secure, and her notoriety was fading into a pleasantness as her friends grew closer and closer.

I was proud of her. More than I think I ever had been. She was resisting where as I…

_Well. Eight Wardens in New York. She hasn't seen me on TV yet or my disguise is good enough that she hasn't recognized me. _

They hadn't pressed charges, Dennis, Martha, and their daughter. Thank god. I'd never have been able to keep it a secret from Taylor. But if I became a Warden, tried to help people, how long would I last before I was outed as the biggest hypocrite ever?

Not very long I bet. I had to tell her. I just… didn't know how.

_Another insight into how she must've felt. She probably wanted to tell me, back then. Just didn't know how._

My power. I didn't have to be near _anyone_ to save them with it. The distance was limitless but the picture was only limited to a small viewing hole that I could… _tag_ to a person, and never lose sight of them.

My shields could not leave my view. I could only protect one person at a time. But that was still something. I'd have to tell her. She'd promised she'd tell me. So I'd have to do the same.

_But how?_

I sighed. My coworkers were getting a little weirded out. I hadn't been the same since my trigger, and Terrence was literally afraid of me.

_I really just need to move to New York. Driving there ever weekend is killing me._

My sighs deepened. To pass the time I queried my power on what dangers awaited me. None, as usual. My daughte-!

The image of a man formed in my mind. Tall, taller than even me. He was thin and had dark hair. He wore a ridiculous black trench coat with the collar popped that seemed straight out of a bad comic book. The flowers around him, and the grass I could see in my portal view of him withered and died as the wind whipped his hair.

He was already at the school.

I narrowed my eyes…

_Nobody hurts my daughter. Not anymore._

_She has Eyespy to watch out for her._

* * *

><p><strong>END CHAPTER<strong>


	7. Make This Right

**Chapter Seven: Make This Right**

_Dammit... Why did this have to happen?_

All my fault really. I should've _known_ accepting Clinic's healing would lead to this, but I did it anyway allowing my powers to return. I could've lived with the embarrassment. Probably could've convinced Clinic to refund the donations but _no_. I just _had to _have my stupid arm back. Had to make sure my friends still liked me!

_I'm such an idiot._

I had promised I would tell my Dad when my powers came back too, but I thought I could wait a little while on that. My range had stretched to three meters overnight but that didn't mean it would keep increasing. Maybe if I was lucky that's all it would reach. Maybe my passenger was handicapped by Cauldron?

_Yeah. Not likely. At this rate, my range will be six blocks by next week._

The stupidest part about it all was that I was still trying to make myself feel bad about it. I knew it was going to cause problems, having my powers back. I _knew_ for a fact I'd come to regret it. But I felt so damn _good_ that I was still having trouble caring. That only made me feel guilty.

After the initial shock and fear of disappointing my dad wore off I found myself delighted. Not for the powers so much as for…_ other things._

Clinic's healing had come with unexpected side effects. My bed covers last night had felt like sleeping on a sea of marshmallows, or maybe clouds. Chinchilla fur maybe. So soft that I could hardly believe it. The aches and pains from injuries and long forgotten battles no longer plagued me and the result was a feeling so overwhelmingly good that my horror at my returning abilities was difficult to focus on. My toes sinking into the soft carpet. My back as I stepped into the shower this morning and felt _real_ warmth for what felt like the first time in an eternity had been heavenly.

The feelings were a double edged sword though.

Conversely, stepping into the cold had been a nightmare. I didn't remember ever feeling the chill of wind so deeply in my life and it wasn't even mid-October yet!

It didn't take long for me to latch on to what had surely happened. I'd suspected Bakuda's bombs had lowered the sensitivity of my pain receptors. I'd updated that belief. I now assumed that they had lowered my ability to feel _anything_.

Clinic fixed all that. Suddenly, a world of grey hues had become vibrant and colorful again. Not in literal colors but in the _feelings. _The sudden influx of touch everywhere upon me was like a cacophony of sensation. Wool was suddenly itchy beyond reckoning while the warmth of my heater brought me goosebumps. I didn't know how to describe it. Even the bite of the cold reminded me that I was human. I was normal. It was as if I'd joined the world again, after so long feeling just _numb_.

I had decided to walk to school today. My initial panic had faded from the night before, particularly due to the feeling of simply lying in my bed without the _pain_ I'd become so used to, that I'd forgotten it. I don't really know how long I'd been missing my sense of touch but I had a feeling It had played a large part in my success as a cape. I'd probably be much less effective now if I had to play the role of Skitter again.

I made it to the building my first class was in with fifteen minutes to spare that morning and felt like a million bucks.

The math building was a spartan place with high framed portraits of old deans or college presidents hanging on archaic wooden frames. No inspirational posters adorned these walls. Only fine tan paint in the most boring of colors to make it look regal. The floor was a marble masterpiece down each hallway, a pattern of some sort of fractal, marred heavily by the footsteps of ignorant and loud college students barging all over it, and each other.

I stepped inside and was immediately inundated with stares from students who knew me, but I had no knowledge of. Luckily, one particular face jumped out of the crowd of moving students rushing to classrooms almost immediately.

"I'm so happy for you Taylor!" Katie exclaimed, the same as she had yesterday when I'd shyly walked out of the clinic, 'armed' and ready for their gasps.

I greeted her warmly and she gave me a hug which I was able to return with both arms. Somehow that felt like a huge achievement.

Eyes all around widened at Katie's outburst causing students who had become used to me over a month to stop and take a second look. The sight of my bare arm shocked some, which perplexed others, until they too, realized that I was supposed to be the one-armed-girl. Then they beamed at me.

I'd rolled up the sleeve because I felt like a child showing off a new toy, but now I demurely slid the my green sweater's itchy wool down my arm. Despite getting far too much attention, I was giddy in a way I hadn't felt since… I don't know. Grue I suppose.

I could get used to it.

I gave another shy smile, a pain in my cheek developing from the unusual position. I didn't... smile much, and felt so much more now. Part of me was trying to ward off all this attention, while the other basked in it. These people were all wishing me well and happy for me. It felt so strange. Not heartwrenching or mind-boggling like it had been when I'd realized how much Chloe and Sophia had done for me at the Clinic, but it was overwhelming nonetheless.

"Wow they raised enough so quickly!? Congratulations Taylor!" Came a cry from a sophomore named Denise Crint who was retaking College Algebra as she had failed it last semester.

"Thank you!" I called, trying to keep my usual stoic voice and she waved in return. Katie and I stepped off to the side to allow the flow of students to pass through, more than a few stopping to congratulate me.

"So glad to see that it all worked out Taylor!" exclaimed the slimy boy who'd invited me to that party after my speech. I didn't know what to say to him. "I got my dad to donate over two hundred dollars. After your speech I couldn't really do anything less."

_"__Yeah… _Uhh._"_

"Hey, listen you want to-!"

I moved and Katie fell into step beside me abruptly cutting into whatever he was about to say as I turned away from him. I was annoyed with this boy, and I didn't care how much he donated to my charity fund. A curious mix of popular and Greg levels of annoying, tied to way too much slyness to possibly be innocent.

Weirdly, I thought that I still had his number on that scrap of paper, buried somewhere in my billfold.

"H-Hey!" he exclaimed and Katie giggled as I moved further away at a bit of a pace. Unfortunately, in my not-quite-desperate attempt to get away, I bumped right into Sarah Culbert, the girl who'd outed my name on the Youtube video.

"Oww!" She hissed as I stepped on her foot, jerking away from me. "Hey wa-! Oh Taylor! You- Your Arm! Oh wow already!? Is it real!?" She exclaimed jerking rapidly from one realization to the next.

I nodded to the girl. She was an ornament, but nothing more to me really. I was surprised by how angry I'd been at her right after my speech. In retrospect, I might've been a little irrational at the time.

"I donated fifty bucks you know," my bugs in the floorboards of one of the classrooms where the floor actually became wood, were able to catch Daniel Shepherd say to another girl whose name I didn't know as I passed out of normal earshot. Okay, using my fundraiser as a pickup line was a little… aw fuck it. Go for it Daniel.

I'd never been in such a good mood.

I'd always been such a stoic person, before regaining myself. I still was in many ways. On Earth Bet I don't think I'd ever smiled at all, but after a year in this world. A year in peace and finally having recovered my right arm, I well and truly felt happy.

"Congra-tu-lat-shuns!" Came Anton's broken English as I stepped into the classroom with Katie beside me.

"Thank you, Anton!"

Him I could answer with no embarrassment whatsoever. I was very familiar with what it was like to learn a language and slip. I shuddered a little remembering the bad months early on when vowels and consonants had held no meaning, and words, little more. Alone and unable to express anything that I thought or said or felt. Only me and my eternally patient father coaching me back to my humanity…

It also helped that I liked the boy a bit. Uhm…_That way._

I was a little conflicted about that. I liked both Reid and Anton in about equal amounts. Both being _a little. _Honestly, I thought both of them appealed to me because they were so different from Grue, who had been the only boy I'd ever even thought of romantically.

I flushed a beet red as he hugged me without a care in the world, awkwardly returning the gesture. He didn't even seem to notice my ineptitude or my nervousness.

By the time I'd made it to my seat a whole group of students had surrounded me. None of them were angry or showed any real signs of jealousy. They were just either happy for me, or amazed that Clinic's reproduction could be so real.

As I slid my pen into my right hand and prepared to take notes I might _actually_ be able to read later, I decided that I was going to make the best of this. Cape or not, this was a second chance. All this time I'd been treating Earth Dalet like a temporary haven. A reprieve before I'd have to jump back into the den of wolves. I had to learn that this _wasn't_ the warzone my home had been. The Endbringers were gone. Scion long defeated, and there were only human monsters left fo fight, which I felt confident I could handle. This was a _good thing!_

I'd never believed I'd truly find the peace I'd always sought and even a year into it I _still _felt on edge. As if the break that would tear it all away was just around the corner. Another part of me that couldn't let go I supposed.

I was slowly forgetting, though. Slowly becoming normal, with their help.

My friends…

I smiled broadly at Katie even as the professor spoke. She cocked an eyebrow at me with an awkward expression. She probably thought I was coming on to her or something but I didn't care.

I was finally becoming okay. Copacetic even.

I wished that my days could always be like this.

When class started, all the words stopped. The congratulations, the attention that made me so uncomfortably comfortable finally ceased, and were replaced by the teacher's words. Quadratics and… Ugh.

My mind was left to wander, and as it always did, it returned right back into the hole my friends had done such a good job pushing me out of. The place where I kept all my fears and doubts and sureties.

_There's no way this will last._

How long till I found another Dinah? Till I would be given no choice? Till doing the right thing overwhelmed me once more? How long until it was all taken from me, piece by piece? This beautiful daydream of a life, so vastly unimportant compared to what I'd done before, yet so infinitely much more… safe? Warm?

Yes. Safe and warm. So much so that it had to be merely that. A dream. How long could such a lie possibly last?

I shuddered. I hoped.

_It will last for the rest of my life. Please. Let it last forever._

Mr. Crowbes assigned nearly forty questions that would take me no less than two hours to complete, due back by thursday. I simultaneously wanted to murder and hug him. He hadn't paid me the slightest lick of attention. The math would distract me for a little while this evening.

I received a few more congratulations and 'wows' as I entered Professor Butler's class in the next building over. He was already there when I arrived, but unlike normal, he was visibly nervous. Honestly if he wore it any more openly he'd be visibly biting his teeth. At the sight of me though, with my second arm in place he visibly relaxed. A little.

"Oh Taylor, good to see you, very good," he breathed. "I was ecstatic when I heard you had gone to Clinic and she'd remade your arm for you. I know you don't like… uhm…" his voice lowered considerably so none of the other students filing into the class could hear. "..._Bribery. _So I wanted to assure you this wasn't that. I honestly do feel you deserve every donated penny. Spreading the fundraiser to the other professors wasn't a bribe. Please don't take it so."

_No no no, teach. That's not how you bribe. You could use some lessons from Tattletale. Or Coil. Hell I could do better than that._

Despite my thoughts, I couldn't bring myself to be terribly angry with him. It wasn't every day someone admitted to a conspiracy charity fund after all. That said, I didn't like him. More and more by the day.

"Sir. I'll speak at your hearing today. I know what you were trying to do. You were angry, and I assume Mr. Coals was your friend. You were wrong but nobody's perfect. If they still take your job then I did what I could," I told him. Loudly.

He winced. Had I been too blunt?

"Thank you for helping the charity. It was kind of you," I said. That had been meant to calm him but it came across possibly even more bluntly. I turned away from him and found my seat.

As a professor, Butler was pretty good. As a person, I'd grown to think of him as little better than the late Director Tagg. At least _he'd_ had a noble goal. Professor Butler seemed solely concerned with his own welfare to me. His words rang hollow and false, his smile and generosity even more so. Hopefully he didn't end up in the same boat Tagg had.

Thankfully, he ended his class after a merciful fifteen minutes. He and everyone else knew he was in no condition to teach, which left me in the unusual position of being out of class way too early to catch the bus without a long wait. I didn't have any other classes for the day so I got to happily enjoy a walk home.

As I left the school my thoughts wandered to how I would go about being a hero this time. I'd obviously have to do something heroic and _fast _before I found myself making friends with villains. Obelisk was already well on her way to becoming the villain-slash-friend Tattletale had been even though I hadn't spotted hide nor hair of her since her appearance in my cafeteria over a month ago. She'd taken my advice. She'd made her case, but she hadn't come forward, which I considered wise. Rapist or not, murder was murder. They would not forgive so easily as I did. She'd probably have to do more to reform in the eyes of the people, but that didn't matter to me. I'd take her either way, should she want a friend. She'd done right, in my eyes. Not smart. But right.

I turned my thoughts back to my own cape. More specifically, my costume. It would take longer to remake my costume and this time, depending on how low my range stayed. I thought I'd try to avoid the dark tone that had practically saturated Skitter's uniform. I'd dye it blue or something. Maybe I'd join the Protectora–err Wardens.

… Eh. Not likely. Though it would be nice to be friends with Clinic. Maybe Vigilant and I could open an independent section of the Wardens here in Centralia?

I began the fifteen minute walk through the breeze, enjoying the chilly feeling on my face. It wasn't a particularly cold day really, now that I'd gotten used to the wind and it had warmed up a little since this morning.

I passed people who waved at me, people who now saw me as a familiar figure, knowing me from my daily runs. A shopkeeper from a particularly awesome pizzeria waved from behind her glass window as I walked on by.

I was in the middle of waving back when a timid voice said my name, just barely loud enough to be heard over the wind.

I turned to find a girl there, staring at me. At least I thought she was staring, as it was somewhat difficult to tell through the strange goggles that adorned her face. She tugged on her braid that hung over her shoulder. It was a reddish-blonde color that bordered on orange but the girl had no freckles. I almost didn't recognize her for a moment. Just a moment.

My Hero. The girl I'd called _Hero_ at the Seminar. I'd tried to find her once or twice but I assumed she might've skipped town. Every time I stopped by her roommates had told me she'd been missing. More recently they told me she'd hooked up with some boy, so I'd figured she was alright.

The way her lower lip was quivering as she met my eyes assured me that, no, she definitely was _not._

"Taylor." She repeated my name, a little quaky but firm. Much more firm than she'd been when I'd taken her through my little play.

"Theresa." I thought to apologize, to say something, but the depth of the silence invoked by her solid stare made it seem almost offensive to interrupt the moment. She had come here to confront me.

She took a deep breath as if preparing for a deep plunge.

"Y-you're wrong! You know!?" she said choppily, her words coming out in harsh pauses as if she wasn't quite sure how to say what she wanted to.

I cocked an eyebrow.

"I-I just wanted you to know that your little hypothetical situation is never going to happen. You are wrong about me, and Vigilant too." She said more firmly, gaining confidence as she spoke.

Except for the fact that she was speaking nonsense. I blinked.

_Huh?_

"I'll never abandon people like you said I would. I'll save my team, and I'll save the people in the grass. I'll save the professors! I… I can save everyone!" She was yelling by the end, barking at me like a child whose toy I'd stolen.

I blinked even harder. Was she crazy? What… what do you say to that?

"Oh… Okay… Okay then." I told her. I was honestly confused out of my mind. What the hell was she talking about? That story I'd made up had just been a hypothetical situation, just like she'd said. She'd never _have_ to save people! Hell why did she even think she cou–!

Oh.

_Oh no._

_My _lower lip quivered as I realized what she was implying. A lump of guilt wedged deep in my throat and I gulped, hoping against hope that my suspicion was false. No, this couldn't be happening…

No vision came. I couldn't tell if she had powers but somehow in my heart I knew. The unexplained absences? God why hadn't I latched onto that? I was… was…!

I was her _Emma._ I was her Sophia, her Madison. Her suicidal brother Toby. I was her fucking trigger.

Suddenly I felt dirty, unworthy of this new arm I'd been showing off. Tears fell down my cheeks.

"I am… _so… sorry."_

She blinked in shock. Whatever she'd been expecting from me, this hadn't been it. "Wh-what? I… but you…?"

She slowly removed her goggles and gazed into my eyes. She looked hard as if searching for something that she couldn't find. Her fear had evaporated, only to be replaced by utter confusion.

I didn't care. I knew what I had done. She knew it too, but she didn't know the details. That I had traumatized her enough to trigger? Oh god how could I have _done this!? _Every time something went right, something else had to just crush me.

She took a step back, hesitant as I approached. I couldn't help but notice the goggles held in her limp fingers at her side. There were some orange and purple lights flashing on the inside, exposed now. Couldn't be anything but Tinkertech.

My suspicions confirmed already. She'd triggered. No. I couldn't refer to it that way, as if it was something she'd simply chosen to do. She _hadn't _triggered. I'd _made her_ trigger. I'd come full circle. Now I was the bully, and I hadn't even _fucking noticed_. Misery followed in my wake...

She flinched only a little as I wrapped my arms around her. Awkwardly. Almost stupidly. The fact that I had two of them seemed to register with her as she stared.

_I didn't mean it… forgive me. I didn't fucking mean it!_

"Wh-whatever you want. I'll do it. I swear I'll make it up to you." I said, squeezing her short frame into my own taller one.

"You mean you didn't even _know_!?" she hissed at me, flinging me away as she did, and I flinched. "I thought you'd brainwashed me, made me crazy. I was so… And you didn't even know what you'd done!?"

_I hadn't even thought about it. _

"I didn't... I'll–I'll make this right. I promise I will. Somehow." I whispered.

I didn't know what to do in this sort of situation. I was always so sure of myself, so sure I was right. A goal, a battlefield, a plan to fix things! But there was nothing. Only my glaring _wrong_ staring my in the face. No way to fight this like I wanted to. Not even any avenue for retreat, as that would only lead to more guilt.

She was silent for a long moment.

"You're a cape aren't you? You were from Bet. I could see it; I think everyone could. You just… _know things._"

I nodded, even as I sniffed. God how I wanted to just scare her away. Get rid of her. Fear was my tool and I could use it to make this girl never confront me with this horrible guilt again! But no...

_This couldn't have been _my _fault! I didn't even know her! How could I have known that just talking to her would make her trigger?! _

_"_T-tell me. I want to know everything. Everything you know about being a cape. I want to know how to be_ "_Hero_." _She said lowly, enunciating her final word as if it had special meaning. Even more damning, her next words crushed whatever resistance to the guilt I had been trying to build. _"__I want to know how to make sure I never become like you." _

I might've been in shock. I felt sweaty, my heart raced and my cheeks were wet, a fact even more pronounced by the cold wind. I don't think I could've denied her anything. If she'd wanted my new arm as payment I'd have given it. How could I have inflicted on another person, the same trauma that Sophia, Emma, and Madison had put me through?

_It might not have been as bad! Sh-she could've just been like Glory Girl a weak trigger!_

The thought didn't help in the slightest. My passenger wasn't a Tinker but Theresa certainly seemed to be.

I had believed myself hardened to everything. I had handled sacrificing everything. My memory, my connections, my loved ones, but this…? This _hurt. It hurt_ to realize my own failings, and I had failed _spectacularly_. What kind of Hero would I ever be? All I could do was wreak havoc. All I brought was suffering wherever I went. My emotions were firing in a frenzy. Could Bakuda's bombs have affected my ability to even feel emotions too?

_Fuck. Chloe. Sophia, Katie. Reid… get the hell away from me. I don't deserve friends like you._

_"__Tell me!" _Theresa demanded when I had remained silent for too long. A bit petulant, I thought, but I crushed that annoyance into mush. _I was_ in the wrong here. Not her.

I gulped. "Alright. Wh-when…?" I asked, unsure. This situation was so wrong to me. I'd never felt so _wrong_ before. I didn't know what to do, how to react. Before I had always been certain I was doing the right thing. Now?

_Should've let Obelisk go. Shouldn't have gotten involved… _

"Tonight. After the hearing." Theresa said with a stutter. Apparently she now felt _guilty_ for the blubbering mess she'd turned me into in a matter of moments. Weirdly, I felt it was only just deserts.

"Will you tell me your story, Taylor? I want to know how you became so… cold." She said, this time much softer than before.

I flinched and wiped at my eyes. They weren't dripping anymore, I'd recovered enough for that but the guilt wasn't going away. I wasn't sure it ever would.

"I'm not cold. Just… trying to be okay," I murmured. "Just trying to… be normal again."

She met my eyes pointedly. "You're not doing a very good job."

She shook her goggles to emphasize her point and I cringed. She didn't seem to like that very much. Our positions were reversed but not by anything she was _saying_. The girl couldn't intimidate a fly, not yet anyway. My guilt was doing all the work for her, in cowing me.

"Not that I mind. I… I love what I can do, but what you said? You were… terrifying. Even crying in front of me I can still feel that same dread like an aura around you… Like you crawled right out of a _nightmare."_

If possible, I thought the lump in my throat grew even larger.

"I did." I said. Crawled out of a nightmare. That's right. I was a monster. My image… I almost felt the moment when I found a way out. An escape. I had found a new goal. It had taken a few minutes for me to break through the guilt but my mind was finally recovering. A way to fix this. A way to make this right… or at least to make me _not wrong._ A plan, a strategy. I could manage this…

"Bet wasn't so kind in the final days..." I told her, spilling my first secret. "People who survived became hard. I'm... not a happy person, Theresa. My story isn't a good one."

What was done was done. No use crying over it. Feeling guilty didn't help but I couldn't get rid of those things at the moment. Instead, I would bury them in activity.

"B-Bet… Earth Bet… you're really–!" She breathed.

I'd prepare her as best I could. I'd tell her everything I knew about capes and how things had gone in my world. She'd be prepared for the pitfalls. The mistakes. That was the least I could do. I'd drug her into this mess screaming, but if I had my way, she'd be the best Hero this world had.

She turned noticing no one really watching us. My bugs, what little range I could feel of them at about five meters now, indicated that no one was paying us attention but I didn't trust them with so small a range.

"Okay." I told her, slowly recovering my senses. "I've decided how I can make up for this.

Assert control. Dominance. I was in command and I could make this right. I would protect her; I would arm her with knowledge.

"I promise. I'll tell you about Earth Bet. I'll tell you about the Protectorate, Cauldron. I'll tell you where capes come from and what they are. I'll teach you the classifications. Why capes get the powers they do. I'll tell you about the Endbringers and the Unwritten Rules of my world between heroes and villains. The Triumvirate and the hundreds, _thousands_ of capes that filled my world. And… and the Golden Morning. I'll… I'll tell you everything."

_Except for Khepri. No one will ever know about Khepri._

Her eyes were slowly widening with each word. Even as I spoke I think she knew. Something in my eyes maybe told her that I'd lived through it all. Earth Bet had become a sort of Legend in this world. Movies had been made about it, wild speculations and theories, no one every even coming close to what the world had actually been like.

A world already filled with capes to bursting? Who wouldn't wonder?

There was a sort of firmness in the girl that definitely hadn't been there when I'd pointed her out in the crowd. She was afraid but she was steady too. There was potential in that gaze really.

All this worlds questions and I was going to hand her the answers on a silver plate. Because they might be enough to keep her from getting herself killed. That would make up for this. That would make this right.

_Won't it?_

The lump in my throat didn't budge but at least my eyes had stopped watering.

"After the hearing, we'll go. I have a place that I want you to see. Maybe you can tell me what the hell I am doing?"

I nodded. "I... probably can help with that."

"Alright then."

With that she turned and began walking away. She was afraid of me, still. How had I not noticed it before? The shake in her stance, the quiver in her eyes. I'd only scared her _more_, but she'd grown a backbone since our last meeting.

Fuck why couldn't I do anything right? I'd never felt so guilty. I couldn't let it go with just that.

"Theresa…? I'm sorry."

She didn't even look back.

* * *

><p><strong>END CHAPTER<strong>


	8. Helping Hands

**Chapter Eight: Helping Hands**

* * *

><p>I'd barely managed to put myself back together by the time I made it home. I'd taken the most scenic route which took a little over an hour.<p>

In that time, through my bugs I'd born witness to a wife slapping her husband, and heard the entirety of their argument. I'd listened to a poor kid beg his boss to let him keep his job in one of the fast food restaurants. A child had scraped her knees on the kitchen floor while her mother barely paid notice to the girl's cries, her eyes glued to the television.

I had grit my teeth and walked on. These weren't wrongs I could do anything about, but knowing about them stung. I wished I didn't know. If I didn't then I wouldn't feel guilty for not being able to help.

It was about 11:30 when I finally reached my apartment, slid into my room, and plopped my face into my pillow, content to feel sorry for myself for the next two hours until the hearing.

Fuck. The hearing. How was I ever going to get up the drive to speak for it now? I probably shouldn't anyway. Probably make some _other _poor sap trigger, _too_.

_I'm such a jackass._

My fingers gripped the sheets and relaxed almost of their own accord. My eyes wouldn't stop watering. My lips were dry and crackly. This was too much. I couldn't take it. So I did what I had always done, and drowned my emotion in the sensation of my bugs.

In the apartment below, one of the three girls who lived there was dancing with her pants off like a lunatic to some rather bad music. Two doors down a boy was playing on a computer game but I couldn't make out what the game was. His room was filled with my minions. Pizza boxes littered the coffee table in front of a large sofa and television in the living room of that particular apartment. Two more boys were throwing ping pong balls into cups on opposite sides of a long, cheap table.

_Beer Pong. This early?_

A boy outside was playing with his dog, throwing a frisbee on the grassy courtyard that surrounded the apartment complex, constantly going in and out of my range. I was impressed as the dog had barely a flea or mite on him. The boy, whoever he was, must've really cared for him, and it showed in how they played.

Two girls and a boy were coming up towards my doorway. Oh wait. Sophia, Chloe, and Reid. I couldn't help but perk up a little. My friends. I almost got up to go greet them when their words reached my ears. My bugs' ears.

"Just didn't really feel like going to my noon class. Wanted to talk to her. She's acting all weird again," Chloe's tone was somber, depressed really.

"Crazier than a box of rocks, I'm telling ya," Sophia's voice came in quietly. "One minute she's fine, doing a handstand for fun, and she's laughing and so _normal_ and then the next… Boom. Blasts into her room and locks the door."

_Talking about me of course. Didn't they have _anything _better to do?_

"She lived through Earth-fucking-Bet Sophia. You gotta cut her some slack, you know?" Reid's voice was a little harder to pick out, his low tones coming in somewhat more cracked from the few bugs I had in the apartment's living room. "PTSD shit."

"You don't know that. That's just a guess," Sophia snapped back. She sighed and then leaned against the wall. "I loved seeing her so happy yesterday. And then something just ruins it all over again. I really hoped getting her arm back would help her..."

That little string in my heart tugged again, but the more pragmatic side of my personality latched on to a more relevant piece of information.

_How did they know I was from Earth Bet? I never got around to telling them that._

"But you and I both heard her Dad saying that she had _lost her powers. _Maybe… Do you think maybe…" Chloe asked trailing off with the unasked question.

_Why you eavesdropping little jerks!_

Something about that thought struck me as out of place. Maybe even wrong, but I couldn't put a finger on what.

"Can we stop talking about Taylor already?" Sophia cut in. "Ever since the seminar its been nothing but Taylor, Taylor,_ Taylor!_"

"Well what are we doing this afternoon?" Reid asked casually, attempting to change the subject.

"You mean _besides_ listening to you yammer on about Taylor?" Chloe asked with a sort of snide smirk at the both of them.

It was hard to make out but I was pretty sure Reid and Sophia both growled at her. Maybe more of a groan.

"_Yes,_" Reid sighed, exasperated. "My crush on Taylor aside, what are we planning on doing? I'm never telling you a secret again by the way."

"Sure you will!" Chloe seemed quite confident. "Who else is gonna help you?"

_Wait, was he serious?_

It's amazing how quickly emotions can flip. I'd just found out I'd literally _ruined_ some girl's life to the point that she'd triggered. And with a tinker power, I could bet that it wasn't a second generation bud from my own shard. She'd been traumatized to the same point as me in my locker, covered in bugs and bile.

Meanwhile, my heart was doing little backflips about some petty crush. That just brought the guilt back even _more._

"I'm going to the teachers' hearing." Sophia interjected smoothly. "Mrs. Greene was a part of that seminar so her job's in trouble and I don't think she deserves that. Most of them don't actually. Nothing planned after that though."

Reid sighed. "I don't wanna go to that. I didn't know any of those teachers."

"But Taylor's gonna speak there you know?" Chloe said with that same patronizing little smile she got when it came to playing matchmaker. One of her more annoying qualities actually. She fiddled with the keys at the door.

"Really?" He perked up.

"Yeah. I heard she told Professor Butler she'd speak for them. You don't wanna miss _that_ do you!?" Again I could almost _feel_ her giving that snide smirk. Not malicious. Just… I don't know. Frisky? She really liked playing cupid then tormenting her targets about it.

_I am not your entertainment Chloe! _

"As far as I know. I think she feels bad about getting them in trouble." Chloe's words lost their humor. "She feels bad about a lot, actually."

The mood among all three of them became somber and none of them spoke as they slid into the apartment. Their voices were muffled much further as we kept the place pretty clean, so I had to move the bugs through the walls. The lights made it difficult to keep them out of sight, but I managed well enough.

"Well, maybe I'll ask her today. After the hearing," Reid said. I thought it was more to break the ice than any actual plan.

"She's probably here you know. She might hear you," Sophia said tonelessly."Also, what are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be with Tanner?"

Reid scowled a little. "He asked me to pick up his X-box since you guys stole it again."

Chloe laughed. "Yeaaahh… Tell him I said no. He can't have it. I have more zombies to kill."

"Knew you'd get hooked." Reid smirked.

"Shudap you," She said in that affectionate way close friends do. I felt a weird pang of envy at the closeness they shared. Could I have a little part of that?

"I'm gonna start making something for lunch. Sophia you wanna knock on Taylor's door? Or Reid would you rather do it?"

Reid snorted, and the two girls laughed at him, leading me to believe that they might actually be serious about him having a crush on me. Well that was weird. I don't think that had ever happened to me before.

Very suddenly as Sophia approached my door, I became horribly self conscious about my appearance. I was a mess, my eyes wet, wearing a green sweater that did nothing to show off the admittedly _less meager_ assets I was sporting recently.

I blinked. Were they…? Wait Clinic wouldn't have…?

I shook my head. I couldn't deal with that now, so I put it out of my mind. A matter for another time. Right now I had a group of friends who even seemed to like me when I wasn't in earshot. Maybe they could cheer me up after this business with Theresa. Hero, I suppose.

_I wonder how good she is? Tinker, so she'll be a nightmare no matter what if I ever have to fight her. I hope she isn't in the original Hero's league. Though if she could build a birdcage that would be convenient. _

A knocking came at my door and I got up.

"Taylor, Chloe's making lunch. Want any?" Sophia called through the closed door.

"Yeah please. I'll be out in a minute." I said a little louder than normal. I hoped they didn't catch the slight hiccup in my voice. "Tell her I say thanks."

"You're welcome!" Came my black-haired roommate's call from further back in the kitchen. I must've been loud enough to hear. Well that explains how they heard Dad so easy. Dammit.

I checked over myself in the mirror, erasing the evidence of my angst. I was feeling a little embarrassed now. I had a plan to fix what I'd done, or at least make it better. I'd panicked but I was okay now, and they were already worried about me. I wanted them to know that what they'd done had been marvelous. It wasn't their fault healing me came with a side order of Anthropodokinesis.

It took about five or six minutes to make sure I looked normal before I left the shelter of my bedroom and wandered out into the glorious smell of sizzling ground beef.

"I'm makin' nachos!" Chloe exclaimed dynamically upon my entry.

I laughed. She was such a dork sometimes, but she did a damn good job of cheering me up.

"Dibs on the cheesiest ones," I said simply, smirking.

"No fair!" Sophia called from somewhere back in her own room.

I sat down on the couch as it was the only open spot with blankets thrown akimbo on the armchairs. Right next to Reid.

"Hey Taylor. Uh… you doing alright? You seemed pretty worried about something last night and all," he said with that sort of calm tone someone might use if they'd accidentally fallen into the lion exhibit at the zoo.

_Real subtle, dummy._

"I'm alright. Just a bit of a panic attack. Not really even sure why," I lied, and they all knew it. Luckily they seemed to leave it at that.

About half a minute of awkward silence lasted before luckily, Reid had an idea. "Hey! Wanna kill zombies?"

_Reminds me a little of Regent. Without the creepy, "I-take-your-body" factor. _

Not that I had any room to talk anymore. At all. I remember being uneasy with Regent for a little while after he'd taken control of Sophia and later Shatterbird. Oh how he would laugh at me after Khepri. I could see it now. _"So. What's new? How ya been since I died? Oh, mind controlling the entire world? That's pretty awesome. Also you're a hypocritical bitch. No offense, Bitch."_

The only petty reply I would be able to come up with would be "It's _body control_… not mind."

Which would just make him laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Imp would probably throw her own two cents in just to make me feel a little more dirty. Jeez. The thought was so oddly poetic that I almost laughed. He really would find this situation so goddamn funny.

"Hell yeah," I replied after a moment spent rubbing my chin as if in thought.

Reid grinned.

The four of us killed zombies and ate nachos for the next two hours. Independently, I also decided that Tanner could not have his Xbox back. By the time 1:30 rolled around, I was in almost as good a mood as I had been this morning.

_I think I love my friends._

* * *

><p>The hearing was a stately affair. Mimicking a courtroom, the defendants were lined up in a row of chairs at the front of the room. Six professors in total, whose livelihoods were in the balance due to my words. The pointy hoods KKK reference might have been a bit much in retrospect, but at least they were alive. I could content myself with knowing that I'd stopped Obelisk from murdering them, even if they could never know it. If they lost their jobs and resented me, well, that was a price I'd have to pay.<p>

Something about that bugged me. If Obelisk had been doing the right thing, why had she nearly been willing to kill these professors as well? If the accusations to the late Professor Coals were true then wouldn't that have ended it? I'd assumed that she'd simply been angry about the way Vigilant was being treated for his attempt at rescuing people and stopping her. Some weird sort of 'capes stick together' mentality, despite Villain or Hero labels. But the more I thought on it, the more I began to believe that there was a missing puzzle piece. Why had the seminar been so 'anti-cape?' The obvious conclusion was that more had been going on that I didn't know about. Could it be that one of these professors had known, or maybe even participated in Coals' debauchery?

If ever there was a time that I missed Tattletale, now was it.

I took a seat near the back and my friends followed me. The room was already pretty crowded with over two hundred filling the hastily arranged chairs. A board of men and women sat behind a large ornate desk at the back of the room, all of them sharply dressed. At the center sat the college president, Prof. Camilla Wright. A mathematics professor who now only taught a few casual seminars between her duties as head of the college itself. She was older, her hair greying, but it had not yet fully lost the black tinge it once held.

The professors looked nervous. I caught professor Butler's eyes as he scanned the audience behind him and saw the obvious relief well up in him when he met mine. Somehow I'd become the savior for him. He must have been extremely worried indeed if he was depending on me to help him keep his job.

Well. I said I'd try. That was all I could do. If he did lose it then it was his own fault.

Mr. Comerford _also_ met my eyes, but he was not nearly so docile. There was a deep and intense anger there, hidden by a paper thin veil of manners and the sham of dignity that I had robbed from him.

My heart seized in my chest. I could feel it within him. The ability to rob the a person… of… oh god. I held my hand to my mouth, barely holding down vomit at the implications of just what Professor Comerford could do.

_Calm down Taylor. He might've triggered recently. He might not even know._

_…__Who says he's even a 'he?' _

I don't know why I could feel his power so easily but it was there before my eyes, plain as day. Not even an intuition like it had been the past few times. I knew without doubt that Mr. Comerford could take other people's bodies. I wasn't certain but I was pretty sure that any body he took would _erase _the victim.

How ironic was that? The anti-cape activist, a cape himself. I'd seen horrible romance novels back in my homeworld with similar plots.

Thankfully, Comerford's power took a long period of time at least. He couldn't just snatch anybody any time he wanted, and he had to be able to touch his victim. The worst part about it was, for all I knew he might not even _be_ Mr. Comerford. He might have left a trail of bodies, his own previous ones, behind for as long as he'd had his power.

I contented myself with the fact that most people wouldn't choose a person in their upper fifties if they could steal the body of anyone they could touch for more than five minutes. I didn't feel much more comforted by that though.

He wasn't using his power _now_ at least, like Obelisk had been about to before the seminar. Instead, he was just… interacting with it. Like clenching a fist rather than preparing to throw a punch. Maybe like flexing a muscle.

Was that how I could sense powers? Hostility? They had to be a threat maybe? Well, Obelisk was obvious. What had Rhapsody been saying on the television? As far as I could remember she'd been silent, but it had been too long. I couldn't remember.

Where could I get a power like that? I wracked my brain and came up with nothing. I didn't know anyone who could sense…

No. Wait, there was one. One person who sensed powers and only _reacted_ afterwards…

_Scion._

I turned my thoughts away from that. No way. That was just crazy.

Comerford turned away from me with a snap of his head back to the board of educators seated at the front of the room.

I began lining the walls with my bugs. I didn't expect to have to use them, and my range wasn't large enough to provide much of a proper swarm anyway. But I wanted to be as ready as I could possibly be. Fuck, I could barely reach the high ceiling. Marble floors made poor holes for bugs to crawl through, though at least I could get several mites and ants through the carpeted areas.

I spotted Devin, Vigilant, sitting near the front, curiously right beside Theresa. Well now. _That_ was interesting.

Katie waved amicably towards me, Sophia, Chloe, Reid, and Tanner who had met up with us on the way in, but didn't come sit by us. She had a group of friends that I knew pretty well from the speech club sitting near the front row.

We sat there for about fifteen minutes as little conversations slowly died before Professor Wright banged on her desk with a gavel and called the room to order.

_Seriously? An actual gavel? I thought that was just for drama._

"Everyone, welcome to this hearing. We will begin the proceedings shortly–"

"Get rid of the racism!" someone from the audience immediately interrupted. "Fire the old bags!"

_They waited until she started talking to do that?_

A chorus of angry protests and inaudible clamors rose around the words, hiding the identity of the person who'd shouted. The old woman, by contrast, seemed to grow colder and more intimidating by the minute.

The look on Mr. Butler's ashen face was almost pitiable at the outburst. Professor Comerford clearly wanted to kill someone, which I already knew I would have to at least look into with my bugs. The others all seemed somewhere in the middle of rage and great sadness, though I did note a harsh glare on Professor Greene's wrinkled face.

"Are you quite finished?" Wright asked plainly once the roars had died down. "Good. The adults are talking. If you can't behave like one you and all those with you shall be escorted out."

_"__Buuuurrrn," _Chloe whispered and I snorted.

Principle Wright had a sort of clipped tone that demanded attention. She reminded me of a significantly thinner Piggot.

"I, along with my colleagues, have assembled here to dispute these teachers' status as employees of Villa Grove University. The teachers have been allowed to speak in their defense, after which we will allow students to also speak if they have any words, as they are closer to their teachers than many of us could ever be."

Hmm. So not like Piggot very much. The woman had a way with words that the old Director couldn't really match.

"After everyone who chooses to speak has done so, we will convene for a short time, on whether we shall continue the process of revoking tenure from the five here who have it, or in the case of Mr. Aldrich terminating his employment. This is a preliminary hearing so no final says will be given today." Her eyes turned directly to the six professors on trial. All of them looked contrite, even Professor Comerford, now.

"I would like to emphasize the importance of this hearing, however, as it will very likely decide the outcomes of your careers."

No one reacted, but the grey haired woman stopped as if expecting someone to speak. After a momentary awkward pause, President Wright was forced to continue.

"If there are no questions, I would like to invite Professor Comerford forward to speak in his defense."

The man stood, wiping a kerchief across his sweaty mostly bald head before stepping up to a podium arrayed in the middle of the room. I tagged him with an ant on his boot.

"Students, ladies, gentleman." Mr. Comerford said, all traces of his anger at me, erased from his face entirely. "I would like to apologize."

A murmur arose from the crowd at that. Luckily no one seemed to want to shout out again, and incur President Wright's wrath.

My awareness of the room was heightened, and after so many months with normal vision it felt good to be able to see from all the angles that I had become used to, even if it wasn't nearly as far as I had once enjoyed. I noticed things that I never would've caught without my swarm. There was a tightness in Devin's face, a cold hatred for Professor Comerford brimming in his eyes. I noticed Theresa rubbing his knee in a soothing manner. It seemed to work, and they shared a close smile.

Something was definitely going on there.

Obelisk wasn't in the crowd. Fortunate. I didn't know how she might react to all this, and I didn't know what she knew about these professors. If more of them had been involved with Coals' debauchery and she was aware, I didn't know how she'd react. It occurred to me that she probably didn't either, and might have avoided this hearing purposefully. She had a temper hotter than my own. I knew that after only one direct meeting.

Comerford's words were inspiring. He claimed responsibility for the seminar as he had been the host, and he graciously spoke with the tones of memorization.

"I regret that I was placing blame. Blame on Obelisk, directly onto your shoulders Mr. Maxworth, and I did so foolishly. With the… the…" He stumbled, his voice hiccuping in what actually _might_ have been real emotion. "..._revelations_ about Professor Coals, a man I'd thought above such filth, I believe I might have even judged Obelisk poorly. The point is, I was wrong. I ask for the mercy of the students who have known me these many years, and the teachers who have done the same, to allow an old man but one mistake in a career of over two decades."

He _was_ good. If anything, he did care for his career. I saw him meet the eyes of many in the crowd, with a warmth that I hadn't seen before now. Students I didn't know. Katie beamed at him, apparently familiar with him. Me, he glared at but it was subtle. This had been my fault after all. I couldn't begrudge him a little anger at me. Better yet, the more he spoke, the more convinced I was that he was unaware that he was a cape himself. He cared about his job, and he cared about the people. It showed in his words.

I'd misjudged him.

Butler, on the other hand, I'd judged all too well.

"I was only at the seminar in support of Mr. Comerford who has been a long time associate of mine, and my words against capes were said in the heat of the moment. I had nothing to do with the planning of the seminar, in fact it was the first one I'd actually attended. I didn't even know Mr. Maxworth would be there. Instead, I had hoped to share some of my theories in a public forum but was woefully unprepared to stop the catastrophe that unfolded that night."

I watched in growing disgust for this man as he casually threw his fellow professors under the bus to try to save his own skin. His, I-absolve-myself-of-responsibility, stance almost made me want to change my own when I was finally allowed to speak.

Weirdly, though, I now felt guilty for professor Comerford. He'd moved me with his speech perhaps. I tended to regard myself above that, but image was a weapon that could be used against me just as easily as I could use it. My gut was telling me he was genuine.

Or maybe I just didn't want to bear the thought of another enemy right now. One who could permanently steal bodies.

The other professor spoke. Some followed Butler's route. Mrs. Greene didn't even seem to care, as if this whole trial hearing was nonsense, but none of them had a quarter of the charisma of Mr. Comerford.

Devin also spoke. _Against _the professors which made sense to me. From his point of view they were enemies. Antagonists. His nervousness didn't seem to die.

"I would like to see retribution. This is a d-direct quote. "I believe you capes should be quarantined after your trigger events."

"For a certain time!" Professor Ellen Carefield stood, still stout as ever, and shorter than I remembered. The stress had not been kind on her this past month. "I said for a certain–!"

"Allow Mr. Maxworth to speak, Professor Carefield." President Wright intruded over the other woman harshly. "You were given your own chance."

Carefield bristled spitefully but took her seat with a studied grace. The glare didn't leave her eyes, what little I could see of them from far behind.

"The point I'm making…" Devin continued, stuttering a little. His words did not command the attention of the room as the professors before him had, but he _did_ command their attention regardless. This was Vigilant. Nervous. Camera shy. _Powered. _That last was all that mattered. "...Is that I don't believe anyone who could suggest quarantine in such a way, especially after the horror of triggering that had been discussed at previous seminars, should be allowed in a position of power. Teachers are supposed to spread knowledge and my experience last month was everything _but_ enlightening."

Little conversations and whispers echoed around his words. He commanded the people's attention but he could not hold it. He was no public speaker, and again I felt sorry for him. That seemed to be working in his favor. He _might_ have gotten what he wanted if the public oppinion had been left to rest after his speech.

I felt a little pride in noting that _I_ had yet to speak, and I was on the professors side, for better or worse.

He focused on Mr. Comerford for a moment. "I don't accept your apology. You invited me, knowing full well what I was walking into. A god damn trap. A guilt trip when I never did anything wrong."

Mr. Comerford couldn't help but quip, "No. You did not."

A few more people stood to take the stand, and none were relevant. The man who shouted before spoke for all of three minutes with uninspiring and unprepared words that only _helped_ the professor's case.

Ninety percent of the audience were students that had been taught by these professors, many alumni. The teachers on the board had been their colleagues and friends for years. I could already tell long before I spoke that their jobs were probably safe. Unfortunately, I'd told Mr. Butler I would speak, and so I would.

When at last the floor opened up once more for anyone from the audience and no one stood, I decided it was finally time. I would have the last word.

"Any other speakers?" Principle Wright's clipped tone rang throughout the room just as I was rising.

I felt Chloe touch my arm. My new arm. I turned to look at her, and she gave me a smile.

"Hey. No scaring everyone this time, kay?" She whispered. It was a joke but there was an undertone of seriousness to her that I couldn't shrug off.

I quirked a grin. "No promises."

She rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling.

Eyes turned to me, and dead silence reigned. The little conversations that went on in the background were abruptly cut short. I met Principle Wright's eyes and even she seemed a little intimidated as I slowly walked down the center aisle to the podium.

When I was half way there, every bug I could feel on the south side of the building abruptly began to spasm. I could hear screaming from people nearby them, scratchy and broken as the bugs twittered in pain. By the time I reached the podium, every one of those touched were dead.

_God dammit. Not again._

* * *

><p><strong>END CHAPTER<strong>


	9. Hypothetical Situation

**Chapter Nine: Hypothetical Situation**

* * *

><p>I tensed as I stepped up to the podium. Whatever I'd been about to say left my mind entirely as battle plans began to form.<p>

Who could kill my bugs, even ones a few inches underground, en masse? The symptoms were simple. Weakening, spasming pain, then death, all in the course of a few moments. It was different for each species though. Some, like mites and fleas, lasted a scant moment, while others like cockroaches lasted ten whole seconds before death took them. I'd had only a moment to see what might've been the cause. I couldn't draw many theories from the image of a few screaming people, then darkness.

I turned my mind to the present. I had to do something. Had to warn them.

My silence was beginning to turn awkward but I didn't care. I caught Vigilant's gaze, though he didn't appear to return mine. He was tense, his fingers gripping at Hero's knee tightly. Theresa was fiddling with something in her pocket, and the bug I'd stashed on Vigilant's sleeve could just make out the girl removing a small cube of metal and what appeared to be a thin face mask from her purse.

No. It was the goggles.

They _knew_. They were getting ready just like I was. Why weren't they warning the _people_ though! I couldn't! I was a normal with an identity to protect, but Devin could!

Fuck, if this had happened just _yesterday_, I would've been nothing more than an average girl. I wouldn't have even been _aware_ of the killings just beyond the building's walls. Now I was. I was trapped, and I knew it.

My range was stretching by the minute. More bugs entered my field, save for the chunk of 'blankness' to the south. I shuffled any remaining bugs near that killing radius quickly underground, deep enough to be safe from whatever was killing them.

There was something to be noticed in the _way_ they had died. Not instantly. Not all at once either. The spasm had wracked them in _order_. From further away from the buildings _towards_ it.

A parahuman with a bubble range like me, stepping towards the building? No, the walls seemed to be keeping whatever had killed the bugs outside from entering this room. No one had noticed anything amiss. The grand walls were solid and nearly soundproof. They seemed to block the killing power as well.

Gas then. Poison. But that, too seemed unlikely. Many bugs were practically invulnerable to poisons. Cockroaches could survive nuclear fallout. What the hell could kill _them_?

I'd have to see the source, and hope that my ability to read powers registered it as hostile, so I could understand it.

Fuck, I'd been standing up here staring at the microphone for far too long. No one peeped, and their eyes lingered on me.

_Fuck, just say something! What was I here for again?_

"Think…" I said slowly. "...of someone you love."

My audience seemed captivated, not yet by my words but by my reputation. I elated at that, before realizing that it wasn't exactly a _good _thing. Not a few phones were trained on me, recording. Again.

"Got someone?" I asked rhetorically. "Good. Now, think of the _worst_ things about that person."

_How can I save them? What to do? How to warn them? _

Ten meters. Fifteen. Seventeen. Gather my bugs? A bug clone? Could work but wouldn't save the people in the other buildings. No. I couldn't worry about that. Had to assume the cape was coming _here. _A bug clone would be only barely viable too. It was October. There weren't nearly enough flying bugs about. A wispy clone at best.

"Are they lazy? Maybe they cheat at games? Maybe the cheat on their girlfriends? Boyfriends? Remember. Someone you _love_. A brother, a father. Maybe a friend."

Me? I thought of Tattletale, and her complete and utter lack of sense when it came to prodding and poking at people. Lack of tact. I thought of Bitch and her all around bitchiness. A couple of the wards pinged at my conscience, Theo most of all, but I couldn't say I ever felt that close to even him. Instead I thought of new friends; Chloe and finding out she'd eavesdropped on me and my dad. Sophia had a penchant for stealing other people's leftovers from the fridge. Silly little things.

I began to stroll away from the podium. The further I could get in each direction the more bugs I could gather. I sent a small contingent of cockroaches and a few other bugs that had survived the longest to the top of the roof to peer down and try to get better eyes on the situation.

Vigilant and Hero were hardly focused on me at all. What the hell was that cube in Theresa's hand?

_I don't have to warn them. Just get them the hell out. _

"I want you to think of all the bad things about that person." I told my audience. They looked confused and bewildered at the direction I was taking them. "Their worst habits to the little things that just tick you off. Things that you know they shouldn't do."

The bugs on the roof died, having seen nothing save for a few students lying on the ground, twitching, barely moving.

I couldn't fucking expose myself. Not like this. Not now, not when I'd promised I'd tell my Dad first. I had to at least do that, cape attacking or not. I'd promised… Dammit I'd promised and I really wanted to keep this one.

The radius of dying bugs was surrounding the building. I could feel them dying as whatever the source was moved closer and closer to us. Clinically, I had bugs with the best vision watch those closer to the death zone. Watched as a short burst of wind touched them before they began dying. Wind…?

_Poison and wind. But what the hell kind of poison universally kills bugs and people? Cyanide? Arsenic? Something more sinister, knowing capes. _

"Over time you learn to ignore the little evils in the ones you love. And they in turn, begin to ignore yours. There's a sense camaraderie in it all," I said. Outwardly, I was calm as can be, but inside I was beginning to panic. How could I save these people? Hell, how could I save _myself?_

"My point is as simple as it is cliche. We're all flawed. Mr. Comerford, and the teachers before you grew angry because their friend had died. It seems to me that they struck out in the only venue they could." I said sadly.

"Yeah. Their rapist friend," said a voice that sounded suspiciously familiar to the one that had interrupted President Wright before.

Inwardly I grinned. Target. I almost felt a tad sorry for him. My bugs identified the speaker directly even though I hadn't been looking at him, and I very nearly turned to eviscerate him. I caught Hero's eyes though.

_I'll make him trigger too. I can't single people out. Not at all. _

My pride singed and screamed to put the asshole down, but I quashed it. Instead I ignored him.

"There was a reason for the seminar last month, but it wasn't to educate us. It wasn't to make us aware of new capes and dangers we might face. It was about revenge. One of the most human things. A cape killed their friend, and a cape should pay right?" Still rhetorical questions. Thankfully the talkative idiot in the back didn't have anything to say.

_Think Taylor think! How to get everyone to leave but not through the main entrance? _

Suddenly, my bugs noticed about a dozen tiny objects begin to spill out of Therea's purse. Floating drones. They hovered between the people's feet, spreading out in a way similar to my own bugs on a small scale.

I moved my flyers towards the entrance as discreetly as possible, as I watched the drones moving towards the fire alarm. I'd already had bugs set to trip it but was holding back on that option due to the fact that the main doors would lead the people straight into the killing zone.

"I don't condone what they did. Capes deserve better than to all be lobbed into one category. They're people just like anyone else. But back to the people you love. What would you do to avenge a loved one? For that closure? Regardless of Mr. Coals actions during life, of his evils that I hope these men and women before me didn't know about. They were trying to do something, just like Vigilant at the bank. They were _trying." _

My audience wasn't held in awe, though they could've been. If I'd pulled that boy out from the audience I could've drawn them in, but Jack Slash wasn't who I needed today. No. Today I needed Dragon. Legend. Cavalier. The speech didn't really matter and was hard to focus on as I felt the killing zone begin to surround the building, seeping in through open windows. Wind. I kept thinking it had something to do with the wind.

They'd said I was a Thinker. Superhuman multitasking. Giving the speech with my body while I desperately sought a solution from my bugs. I didn't have more than a few moments before the decision was forcibly taken from me. I felt more than saw the drones approach the fire alarm.

Fuck! The idiots, the alarm would send the people straight into the line of fire! God dammit!

My cockroaches pounced off the wall, ten or fifteen, blanketing the drone's visibility. It flailed wildly for a moment before plunging off course and smacking into the ground loud enough to draw the eyes of half the room.

Another drone approached and my supply of bugs on that wall was perilously low.

_You're a hero now, Theresa! Think!_

Our tiny war was suddenly interrupted by a horrible _bang. _Unmistakably, gunfire, followed by an ear-piercing feminine scream that managed to cut through the deep doors.

Thank god.

Before me, I watched Mr. Comerford jump, terrified instantly as the crack of what sounded like a shotgun jerked them to their feet.

Adrenaline surged through me, and I felt relieved. The gunshot would be more than enough to convince them to leave through the back. Now I didn't have to make bug clones to scare them into leaving, or use the fire alarm.

"Get out through the back!" I screamed into the microphone, my voice tearing through them all before panic could set in. "Go around that way!"

I pointed roughly towards the back hallway, drawing all eyes, and the teachers moved to comply.

"She's right. Everyone leave as quickly as possible!" Professor Wright's words echoed my own, but with a stately presence that commanded as much as my anger did. I shot her a nod.

"Call the police!"  
>"Fuck, who's shooting a gun?"<br>"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shi.."

"Hurry!" I screamed. "Fuck, don't just stand there you idiots! Move before he takes the whole building hostage! Follow me!"

Too shocked to do anything else the crowd seemed to respond lurching forward but then shuffling towards a stop, people scrambling to get out of the rows of seats. A few even scrambled over the pews.

"What's going on?!"

Cacophony, but not so uncivilized that anyone was going to get trampled. I hoped.

Honestly, this actually felt refreshing. It was nice to have such a black and white conflict. Some monster killing things outside. Killing people. That made this _real_ easy.

_Down the fucker. _

I felt only the briefest pang of regret for my promise to my Dad now as I prepped my bugs. Some small part of me wanted to hide my abilities but I didn't think I'd be able to. I'd need everything I could use to beat this one. A gun on top of it? Fuck, I didn't even have a _knife._

"T-Taylor, what's going on?" A blonde girl asked, grabbing my shoulder. She looked my age, and I recognized from class. She was the brave girl who'd asked if my story at the seminar had been true.

"I don't know," I lied. "Someone's attacking."

The crowd pushed into my back as I slid around the small hallway at the back of the room, returning to the hearing room while the crowd squeezed around me.

"Oh god this can't be happening…" I heard a man whisper to himself as the crowd pushed him, filtering them all slowly out the backdoor.

"It's happening. If you're smart, and keep your head on straight you'll be fine," I told him with a little more confidence than I felt. "The gunshot was out there, and he hasn't come in here yet so–!"

My words were cut short as the door handle to the main room suddenly burst in a spray of wood chips and another massive _bang_. Sophia! Chloe! They were still near the back of the room!

"Hurry! Get out! Hurry!" I screamed shuffling them along in front of me and clearing out of the way, back into the room. The pace of the people picked up as I prodded them, sometimes even physically pushing them to move faster.

The doors banged open and I finally saw who was causing all this shit. A tall man wearing a brown trench coat that whipped wildly in a wind that hadn't been present before.

I grinned as his power bore itself before me. Spilling out all its secrets like a human Pandora's Box.

_Wind. Wind to carry a draining toxin created from his skin to touch anyone he wants at will. Constant application needed to continuously drain. Continuous flow of wind that he can direct and guide to people. Surrounding him, a near permanent vortex of wind, like a tornado. Deflects most projectiles. Tinker weaponry could penetrate it. Calm interior._

Well. That explained why no one had blasted his head off with a sniper. Sure could use Kid Win right about now. How the hell was I going to do anything to this guy?

Striker 7, with the toxin in his skin alone. Fuck what could control wind? A shaker? Blaster? I didn't even know how to classify him. All I knew was that my bugs probably couldn't even get near him. The direct way at least. No wonder this guy went solo. By normal human means he was invincible.

Alexandria would thrash him. Armsmaster might not even bother.

_I on the other hand_ was going to have some problems with him.

"Ah. Taylor. Right? Hmm!" He seemed to giggle to himself, hefting the shotgun to lay the barrel casually over his shoulder. "So. _Blight Arrives._ Wasn't that how my part in this little play started?"

_...And he had to be batshit insane to boot._

I wasn't decaying yet so I had to assume he was here for something. I could see bodies lying on the ground through the door outside. _Lots of them._

"Why the hell are you here?" I demanded.

Vigilant and Hero both seemed frozen solid at the sight of him. Hero's goggles hung limply in her hands. This was the guy openly responsible for the deaths of over three hundred people. One of the top destructive capes in this sheltered little world.

They were terrified.

I was irritated.

"Fame and fortune?" He offered with a lifted palm. "Meet new people? Truthfully I was bored. I wanted to meet the girl who pushed me from occasional headline to utterly infamous. You know, ever since that video of yours I've face no less than seven assassination attempts."

"Huh," I sniffed. "Just seven? Clearly you need to work on your villainy. Need to ride my coattails? You barely even know how to use that power of yours. Meanwhile, I didn't even have to use mine to become famous. Come on. I'll hire you, and maybe we'll make a respectable villain out of you in… a few years."

He grinned, wide and full. "So you _are _a cape! Oh the media would die to hear this conversation! Tell me, what can you do? Talk me into killing myself? With that chilling speech of yours, I could believe it." He mocked.

My bugs were swarming beneath his feet. Termites were tearing the wooden floor to shreds. My spiders would swarm him if I could get him to stand there for just a little longer. Only two Black Widows though I had enough Brown Recluses to make him beg.

"That would be telling," I said casually.

"T-Taylor…?" Chloe whispered from just outside the back of the hall, horrified by my words. Hero and Vigilant looked just as surprised.

_God what are you still doing here Chloe!_

Tears slid down her cheeks. "Tay…"

My eyes widened as I watched the girl run towards me.

"Who's this annoyance?" Blight asked just as Chloe clasped her arms around me.

"I can't leave you… I couldn't just leave you…" She bawled.

_God Chloe I love you but you are a complete idiot._

"Hmmph," was the only warning I received.

A burst of wind blasted me back into the dais where the Board of directors had sat. My back slammed into the high wooden desk robbing me of air. I gasped, pain overwhelming my senses.

_Motherfucker! Why does this hurt so much!? _

The reason hit me like a truck. Clinic healed me. The _nerve damage_ from Bakuda's bomb was _gone. _I could feel the cold more acutely. Feel the sunlight more warmly...

And feel agony beyond reason.

"N-No! Stop it!" Chloe screamed.

I grit my teeth and realized I'd slumped to the floor, trying to make myself stand.

"I was having fun. No interruptions!" He screamed and leveled the shotgun at the black-haired girl.

My eyes widened in horror. Tunnel vision overtook me and the pain seemed to bleed into nothing in the blink of an eye. A _shotgun_ was aimed at my best friend.

My bugs stormed in from the ceiling sliding in through all corridors of the room to swarm him, but they were batted away seemingly without thought. I wasn't even sure if he'd _seen _them, because they weren't being poisoned. Simultaneously, I was on my feet dashing for Chloe. I could see his hands on the trigger with my bugs just as I managed to push the girl away.

The burst of gunfire blasted my eardrums, but there was no pain. I watched myself through the eyes of my bugs as a blue forcefield surrounded me just in time to shatter into pieces before it fell from me like shedding a glassy shell. The pieces faded into mist and then nothing before they could reach the ground.

_What the hell?_

_"__A barrier? Hmm," _Blight said before cocking the shotgun, the casings clattering to the marble floor with two ominous chimes. His wind batted away my bugs before they could even come near him. Fuck, I needed to get them through the _floor! _His clothing wasn't being torn to shreds so there must be a safe inner zone, barely affected by his wind.

Not nearly enough termites. Fucking school paid its damn exterminators well, and it was going to get me killed.

_Vigilant, Hero, do something!_

"Pity."

He pulled the trigger again and no barrier saved me this time.

I screamed as my left arm was wrenched backwards and I was flung, spinning to the floor once more. My heartbeat pounded in my forehead. Numbly I heard the gasps of my companions. Chloe from her place on the floor where I'd pushed her. Vigilant, his eyes narrowing, only now getting truly _angry_ about all this. Hero frozen solid.

I held back a second scream as my body rolled without regard for my flailing limbs. I landed hard on my shoulder where the pain was coming and let out another grunt before rolling, blessedly to a stop.

Was I in shock? It… should hurt more than this…? The pain, the feeling of the bullets blasting through my arm should hurt more shouldn't it?

I wanted to move but my body wouldn't comply. Had my mind shut down? Fuck… my bugs. A new… a new power? My pain now bleeding into my bugs just as I had done with my emotions? The pain was distant, but I couldn't move. I realized suddenly that I was gasping for breath.

I could do nothing but watch and hope. The sound of heavy footsteps echoed on the marble floor. Vigilant had finally engaged him. I tilted my head so I could watch with my eyes as he closed in.

His fist flew with a heavy haymaker that I already knew was doomed to fail. Wind burst around Blight and Devin's arm flailed wide, as if pushed back by an invisible force. Blight capitalized on the distraction, plunging the butt of his rifle into Vigilant's stomach.

A loud _clink_ rang as the rifle impacted hard on some sort of metal armor beneath Vigilant's sweater. I watched Blight's eyes widen as the mover grinned. The dark haired boy backhanded Blight hard and sent him sprawling to the floor, trench coat flapping as he sprawled.

_Stupid idiot. That was your chance! You were inside his field! You needed to fucking stay there!_

Hero stood stock still. Terrified, unable to run or fight.

"T-Taylor. Oh god, Taylor, no..." Chloe. I didn't have time to worry about her right now.

Blight seemed to _glide_ to his feet rather than stand, buffeted by a frenzy of wind. His lower lip was bleeding. His nose, crooked. He snarled at Vigilant, a dark shadow cast over his eyes.

"Clever." Was all Blight said, before holding his hand forward in a classic blaster gesture. My ability to sense hostile powers allowed me to see him manipulate the wind moments before Vigilant dropped to the floor screaming. His hair and clothes whipped furiously as wind seemed to swirl around him similar to how it normally did around Blight. Even I was disgusted as Vigilant's face literally began to morph and _age_ before my eyes. Skin drooped and wrinkles began to form as he put on ten years over the course of a minute. His screams echoed in the tall room.

"Devin!" Hero screamed.

_Oh you're here after all? What happened to all that conviction you had before dammit!? Some hero!_

Those were the tamer comments that fluttered through my mind as I watched the girl _finally_ snap out of her shocked stupor. It seemed for a moment that all she was going to do was scream in rage and _stare_ at the bloody lipped villain.

And then there were _drones._

They fucking _poured_ out of her purse as if she'd somehow hidden an entire army in there. They spread wide, and menacing, each the size of a pebble, in a technique I was quite familiar with. The swarm. Terror. Fanning out to appear even more numerous than they were.

Blight stopped his attack on Vigilant for a moment, taken aback by the army of floating pebbles before him.

Did they have some sort of beam weapon maybe? Fuck she might be able to stop him after a—

My eye twitched as the drones began to ram themselves at him by the dozen. They bounced off his wind-shield as if they really were pebbles thrown at a steel wall. One by one they clattered broken to the floor or smashing against the pews. Some even shattered into pieces like a snowball.

I tried to push myself to my feet, slowly regaining motion from whatever it was that was draining my pain. Adrenaline surged through me but for some reason my left hand didn't catch the ground and I fell hard, smashing my face into the ground and landing on the arm. I let out a short scream as _agony_ rushed through me.

_Fuck, it still hurts._

Some part of me deep inside was screaming. I was in pain. I _wasn't_ in pain. I didn't know what was happening. A new power or just an overload of sensation so strong that it literally immobilized me?

I finally glanced down at my arm to assess the damage that must've been worse than I'd thought. To my shock, I found there was _nothing there_ below my shoulder, save for twisted bone, burnt skin, and blood leaking out onto the floor. Trickling out.

The blue barrier was squeezing itself tightly around my arm, a makeshift tourniquet.

_"__Whoever you are… thanks." _I whispered.

I still had my bugs, and, finally, they breached the floor. Unfortunately, the bastard was no longer standing there. I set my termites to carving more holes further up and down the floor even as I watched Vigilant's aging form tossed by the wind into a row of wooden pews crushing them under his metal armor.

"S-_Stop it!_ Stop hurting him!" Hero –No. _Theresa_– screamed.

_Worst. Hero. Ever._

She'd have to _earn_ the name Hero. She was still holding that damn cube. Whatever it was, I sure hoped she could use it.

Two more holes in the floor and spiders were ready at all of them. I just needed to get him to stand near them, close enough that the wind wouldn't blow them away.

On the ceiling, my cockroaches, my pincer bugs, had been chewing away at the heavy fan's mount around the handle. They couldn't chew through the metal but they could weaken the ceiling enough so that the fan could fall.

And fall it did, slamming down onto the surprised man. Just before it would've crushed him, the cords that powered the fan caught on the ceiling, and the damn thing swung, hanging just above Blight's wind-barrier, useless.

But it had done its job. Blight had stepped back, just over one of my holes. I shoved spiders through the tiny crevice as fast as I could move them sliding them up his heavy boots and into his pant legs.

"No…" He said slowly. Disappointed. Almost bored. "Something is missing. I wanted fun but this… its too easy. Too dull."

He directed his wind back to the doors near the back of the room and blasted them open with a sharp gust, which let in the blaring sound of police sirens from outside.

To my shock, and then annoyance, his feet left the ground, hovering on tiny explosions of wind which burst beneath him giving him a limited sort of flight.

_He can fly too? _

Six spiders, all Brown Recluses made it onto his socks before he left the ground. None of the Widows had been close enough.

Fuck.

"The story was missing something after all. But I like my part in your little play Taylor," he told me as I struggled to get back to my feet. "You have a nice little team here. Now, are you going to leave and save what remains of it? Or will you try to save _them?" _He asked, alluding to the open doors.

His body drifted almost in slow motion to line up parallel with the ground before he rocketed out of the room, leaving us to lick our respective wounds.

"Taylor, Taylor, oh god… Oh god…" Chloe was scrunched up into a ball hugging her knees with her eyes closed. She was bawling like a baby, and I felt another stab of annoyance. _She _hadn't been flung against a wall after all. She hadn't lost _another fucking arm!_

_She came back for me. Completely normal with no powers to her name and she fucking came back for me. I will NOT be annoyed with her._

Hero had been thrown across the room by a burst of wind at some point when I hadn't been looking but she was already making her way over to Vigilant.

Devin fared better weirdly. Blight's power seemed to require constant application or the people who had been affected by it reverted back quickly. Age was _melting _off him. On the downside, it appeared to be painful. To his credit, he wasn't screaming, but the twitching, spasming body beneath the crushed wood of a pew didn't inspire much confidence.

The lull of silence in the room was only momentary before the sound of screams and gunfire began to echo from outside. To my horror, a loud grinding sound, followed by a deep crunch drifted across my ears. My bugs saw it all. Wind strong enough to shove cars into the men who'd been using them for protection.

I began to space my spiders on the north side of the building evenly around the quad, hiding them in large ant tunnels where they could spring up should he step over them. The bastard was hovering at the moment though. He could control wind with as much proficiency as I could control my bugs. I wondered if he had to physically control the vortex and the explosions of wind that kept him aloft or if he just did it naturally?

_Unimportant. Focus. How do I kill this bastard?_

First things first.

"Chloe… Chloe I need you to focus. Someone, some cape, is holding the blood in my arm right now but whoever he is, he shouldn't have to do that."

"Wh-what…?" She cried, peaking out from her knees. "Is… is he gone?"

"For the moment but he'll be back soon eno–!" I cut off abruptly. She was frightened. No need to scare her further. I needed her.

"Chloe, I need you right now. I can't do it. Please, concentrate for me." I reasoned with her. "Tie a string around my arm. Cloth, something to cut off the bloodflow. No. No, don't cry again. Stay with me… its okay."

I was coaching my own healing, but Chloe seemed to be on board. Her eyes lingered perilously long on my bloody stub, but luckily it wasn't dripping profusely. I thought another silent thank you to whoever it was providing the barrier. That first bullet probably would've finished me without it.

_Lucky. Careless. I've grown soft in the past year._

That thought nagged at me but I didn't let it hinder me. I had a villain to kill.

"I was so… so scared. Taylor. You're… you're…"

"Bleeding." I interrupted. "String! Hurry! He's hurting people outside right now and no one is going to stop him if I don't!"

I wasn't sure if the barrier power could only surround one thing at once but that did seem to be its limit. The ring squeezing my arm so tightly, pulsed occasionally like a muscle that was straining hard to keep flexed.

She finally moved. With a teary nod she stood and began opening desks where President Wright and the other professors not on trial had sat. The first three offered nothing but luckily the next fourth, near the end, revealed a legitimate first aid kit.

When she got over her terror Chloe really _did _work fast. I was surprised that she didn't even flinch at the blood in my arm. Her confidence grew as she worked and I only winced a little as the string took the place of the blue barrier, squeezing my arm even higher up on my shoulder.

"You're really going to be a great doctor someday," I told her, looking over her work partially amazed. The blue barrier finally faded away, and then blinked into life around my body. Wonderful. I had my armor. Now I needed a weapon.

"Sh-shut up!" She screamed, a little bit crazily. It was the first thing she'd said since she'd rushed off for the string.

My bugs were slipping onto Blight but I was afraid to let them bite him. Only three had remained clinging to his socks, poised to bite, and he was very close to the edge of my range. That and his skin would cause them to decay and die _very_ quickly. I'd need to strike him all at once. Every time he landed I made my bugs scramble, even going so far as to use the few fliers I'd managed to stash underground to try and carry the spiders to him but I failed far too often and he rarely touched ground.

"Y-you're going back out there! You're going to try to fight him again!? After all this, you're just going to throw your life away? H-He's going to kill–!"

I touched a finger to her lips, shushing her, and gave her a slightly pained smile. I was getting better at smiling. Especially for friends like her. I couldn't keep a tiny grimace out of my expression but I hoped she'd forgive me.

"He's a wimp. I'll be fine," I assured her.

Her lower lip trembled, and I realized she was about to cry again.

I wasn't really sure what to do here. I didn't remember the last time I'd gone into battle and left someone _normal_ behind. Everyone I'd cared about had always been right there with me. Except my dad, I guess? But he hadn't really ever seen me off like this. Why did she seem to care so damn much? We'd met a month ago, after all.

_"__God dammit Taylor, _I said no scaring everyone! You're not even worried. He blew off your arm and you're not even _slightly afraid!_" She screamed at me as if that were some sort of accusation. She was right a little. Even though he probably could kill me, I couldn't bring myself to be afraid of him.

After the Golden Morning, after being so afraid the world would hate me forever, death wasn't really all that spooky.

Another crunch, this time the wind had blasted one of the car doors into the face of a hiding cop, and the window had shattered. People were _still running_ trying to find a safe distance.

Katie? Mr. _Comerford!? _What the hell were they still doing there!?

At least they were well behind the row of cars along with a large group of people backed up against the wall of one of the dormitories. They were huddled down as if afraid to move in any direction, along with several other people.

"Not really my choice. The seminar wasn't either if its any conciliation. I had no choice except to speak up and hope. After Clinic… I can do a little more."

"The bugs… was that the power you'd…" She trailed off, unsure what to say. "Taylor I… don't know what to say."

"Don't have to say anything. You've been a good friend Chloe. Probably one of the best I'll ever have. Wish me luck, kay?"

The pain was draining away, back into the manageable web that I remember holding before. Back before Clinic had healed me. Evolution? My nerves felt fried again. I could activate the numbness of Bakuda's bomb at will, or at least copy the effect now by distributing the pain through my swarm just as I had with my emotions. Convenient.

"Y-You're just going to leave!?" Chloe screamed before I could get too far into my planning.

I wanted to do just that, but I owed this girl. In some way or another. I felt more indebted to Chloe than I did to Theresa. I put a soft hand on the dark haired girl's shoulder.

"You're not bad at first aid. First, go check on Devin over there, okay? You might be able to help patch up some of his wounds. Then, you need to go out that back door and help anyone outside who's still alive."

She seemed stunned. Now that her task on my arm was completed she'd zonked out, going back into her own little shock. My words brought her out of it and I watched the clarity return to her eyes.

"I can do that. Yeah. I… Yeah. T-Taylor."

I gave her a smile and patted the shoulder tenderly. She stood and nodded down to me before running over towards Vigilant and a still sobbing Hero.

She stopped only a few paces away.

"Taylor?" She said, softly. "Fuck him up."

I smirked in a way I thought Jack Slash might've been proud of.

_Round Two Bastard. _

I stood and began to walk out the door Blight had blown open, but stopped, noticing a cane had been left in one of the pews. I laughed, recognizing it as Professor Butler's. That was fitting. I casually scooped it up, and now I had a weapon. Having my right hand was much better than only having my left. I could actually _use_ the cane too.

I spared a glance for my bloody left hand, lying mangled on the floor behind the podium and felt a little sick to my stomach. Not even a fucking _day…_

My range was nearing a block. I'd discovered a little trick too. The interiors of the cars could hold my bugs and protect them from the wind. I lined the vehicles with them, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

Two spiders remained on his socks. One of them had accidentally pressed one of its legs through the thin fabric and come in contact with Blight's leg. It decayed till it died, not even having managed a single bite. Blight was still unaware of them though. That was something at least.

"Wait!" Came a harsh scream. I was surprised to see Theresa following up behind me, jogging to catch up before I stepped outside.

"You're going back out there!?" She breathed, panting. I was almost shocked she'd left Devin behind.

I fixed her with a hard eye. "Yeah. Someone's got to stop him."

"I-I… I'm coming with you," she tittered. It was almost a god-damn question.

"No." I told her. "You're not. You're way too green for this. You'll only get yourself killed, or worse, get in my way. If throwing little drones at him was the best thing you could come up with then you're not any use yet."

She cringed, and I felt a little guilty. Hours ago this girl was the source of all my guilt. Now she'd become a hindrance and not one I could concern myself with. If I lived I'd have time to feel guilty.

"O-Okay," She murmured, stepping backwards and leaning clumsily against the wall. "I guess I'm… not a Hero at all, am I?" She asked. I hoped the question was rhetorical because I sure as hell didn't have any kind words to soothe her. Her first outing as a cape and she'd blown it big, crying like a baby.

Vigilant was down. He was looking almost like his regular self again but he was unconscious. The pain must've been too much.

I turned away and stepped into the sunlight but the other girl caught my arm. "T-Take this." She said, handing me the cube she'd been holding.

I looked at her, questioning.

"Its… its a bunker. Throw it at the people. It'll open a barrier field that should block Blight's wind. If he gets into the field though, it won't do anything. I… I can control it from here so I should be able to keep him out but."

I blinked. Hard. A… a bunker? A forcefield bunker? In a _cube!? _That was…

"Good job." I told her. It was all I could think of to say.

I ran out of the building into the afternoon sunlight, my skin and clothes glimmering blue with the barrier of my helper, whoever the cape watching me was...

...And I saw carnage.

Trees stripped entirely of their leaves withered down to rows of decayed husks. The grass, once green and vibrant, was now stained a horrible yellow. Rubble lined the street nearby and cars shifted from their original positions to the back of the road. Blight floated in the middle of it all, happily gesturing. And with each move of his hand people fell screaming.

He was laughing as he watched people wither and age, their forms slumping down until they became skeletal.

Similar bodies littered the road behind the vehicles, most dressed in cop uniforms.

A few gunshots still rang out from those who had been lucky enough not to fall under Blight's gaze already, but the dead outnumbered the living.

My steps were swift. He depended heavily on his vortex of wind to keep him safe but I was pretty sure my barrier could get me through that. All I had to do was get rid of the shotgun.

My bugs began to form arrows. I'd gather them all where Katie was, and that's where I'd deploy Theresa's bunker.

I approached fast and he didn't notice, laughing away like a lunatic. He literally _was_ insane. The classic definition of a psychopath, killing for the pure joy of it.

_This is so lame. I feel like I'm in a B rated horror film._

"Come on! Keep shooting! Keep shooting! You couldn't hit the broad side of a ba–!"

He cut off abruptly as the long end of my cane smashed into the side of his face. He landed but kept his footing, barely, and I instantly sent spiders nearby rushing up antholes I'd prepared underground and into his pantlegs to join the two that remained.

Not stopping, I used the momentum left over from my first swing to bring it around further and wrap the cane hard across his fingers. He screamed in pain, dropping the shotgun and holding his hands close to his chest.

"W-What the hell?" He managed to his before I swung again, my cane crushing the other side of his face. He _still _didn't go down, but it didn't matter anymore as spiders _swarmed_ up his boots. Seventeen. Eighteen. One was a widow.

More than enough.

He blasted backwards into the air, hovering away from me. Hmm. He didn't seem to be able to fly very high. Was that fear keeping him grounded, or was his power not strong enough?

"Y-You… got through my…"

"You're the worst villain I've ever seen," I told him, placing myself between him and the shotgun he'd dropped.

He snarled like a beast. His face seemed like it was covered in warpaint with the two similar welts across both cheeks. He threw his hand back towards the civilians, obviously planning to use them as collateral.

"We'll see about–!"

I was a step ahead of him, having already dropped the cane. I stared straight at him as I threw the cube I'd pulled from my pocket while speaking.

He flinched, expecting it to be aimed at him. I'd done that to make sure he didn't use his wind to blast my throw off course. Luckily, my throw sailed over him unimpeded to land haphazardly near the cop cars and the dormitory on the other side of the street where Katie was.

The cube burst, concentric rings sliding out of it like a giant metal cage. Thin cylinders formed, metal exploding out of no where, even as neon green barriers began to erupt down and up to meet them. The barriers exploded outwards to form a three story glowing building, held together by a metal skeleton of what looked like pipes. People who'd been aging, caught inside the barrier, instantly began to revert, still twitching in pain.

If I'd been a little newer, I might've been surprised. Tinkers. Such bullshit. She made that in a _month?_

Inwardly, I reevaluated Theresa just a little. Shabby on the offense. On the defense…?

"Sh-She fucking hit him! That girl fucking managed to _hit him!" _I heard a person scream.

I turned my mind back to the fight.

Blight turned his attention to me for a brief second with another feral snarl, before blasting away from me towards the girl who'd been _stupid_ enough to point out a flaw in Blight's attack. A girl no where near the protective barrier.

Hell he'd come _here _because of a fucking video. I supposed he was vain.

Now or never.

My bugs bit down as one. They began to spasm but that was no bar to their poison as I injected Blight with as much venom as I could. I had them rip and gnash until I was sure each and every one of them had punctured the arteries in his legs.

He dropped with a yelp losing his concentration. His power abandoned him and he plummeted head first into the ground, his face skidding painfully along the grass.

My spiders continued to bite him as they died but they didn't matter so much anymore. He was on the ground now. More spiders crawled up his pants into his sleeves, under his neck. Biting him and dying in droves as he writhed like a worm.

"Wh-What _are you!?" _He screamed. Turning to look at me. "F-Fuck!"

His face was ragged, covered in dried grass and dirt. His teeth seemed misaligned.

I approached him slowly. Finally, I watched his glare recede to a more primal emotion. Fear.

People all around were heading into the barrier but every one of them could see me walking towards this monster of a man. Fortunately, I didn't think anyone had realized what I'd done with the bugs.

People on the sidewalks and grass began to recover, reverting back.

A sharp gust of wind suddenly blasted into me, harsh and unyielding and I had to strain to continue my walk forward. The barrier didn't shatter this time though. Whoever my mystery aide was, he or she had been ready.

Blight scrambled backwards away from me, standing, tripping, falling back on his ass, through a mass of ants worms and anything else that I'd been able to hide beneath the ground.

Pitiful.

"How long did you really think you'd be able to keep this up?" I asked softly. Still walking forward, holding my cane. "How long until you met someone who had a power that could get around your wind, huh? Where I'm from, we deal with people like you harshly. Idiots who go around killing get away with it maybe twice. Then they're _crushed. _Just like you're about to be."

He shuddered. "What was I supposed to do!?"

I paused. Then continued walking.

He scooted back a few more steps and the wind tried to buffet me again. No matter.

"Fuck! What would you do!? If your power made you poison to everyone you touch! If your power killed everyone you cared about! Fuck I just wanted to _feel_ something again!" He screamed.

Pure panic had seized him. I had neutralized his every power with barely a thought. He was terrified.

He should be.

I didn't even stop walking as I cracked the cane over his head once more feeling his skull dent. The cane cracked leaving wooden splinters at the end.

"What would I do?" I asked rhetorically as I placed my foot on his chest and slammed his back into the ground. "Not this."

I stabbed him in the eye, and felt the cane sink into the soft earth on the other side of his skull.

He screamed. And then he was silent.

The wind died. The sunset felt strangely cold.

Like a switch, the pain of my burning arm, my aching back, everything I'd bled into my bugs, returned tenfold. Pain that nearly dwarfed my memory of even Bakuda's bomb blinded me. It was all I could do not to wail. Instead, I sunk to my knees and prayed the medics would get here soon, barely managing to hang on to consiousness as I made sure to fall _away _from the poisonous parahuman.

_Oh god I hate this new power._

The blue barrier caught me when my arms gave out and laid me on the ground as gently as it could.

* * *

><p><strong>END CHAPTER<strong>


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